"Humor Me" says Robert S. "Bob" Wieder

TASTY FREEZE

2007-03-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

I see by today's USA Today that drug dealers are now attempting to lure young people to use methamphetamine by peddling flavored meth. Among the flavors being found by DEA agents are strawberry, chocolate, cola, and other soda flavors (Dr. Pepper would seem to be a natural here).

Well, if this is true, it is absolutely unconscionable! It is outrageous!

When are we going to stop coddling and pandering to this younger generation?

When I was young and strung out, we took our narcotic and stimulant drugs without any fancying up, the way God or Pfizer or No-cuts Norman made them. If your speed tasted like battery acid, well, by God, that was the price you paid to burn another hole in your frontal lobe. If you wanted to honk something fruit-flavored up your nose, you went to the House of Pancakes. Some of us, anyway.

I recall a hit of DMT in 1977 that made everything I ate taste like burning rat droppings for three days. They don't make drugs like that anymore.

Chocolate flavored crank! Preposterous. Next thing you know, they'll be selling fruit flavored vodka.

Eh? Say what?

Tarnation!

WHY DID HARVARD APPOINT A WOMAN AS PRESIDENT WHEN THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN JACK LA LANNE?

2007-03-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

The current newsstand edition of Newsweek has a big cover story--well, actually an extended, multi-article feature--on "Exercise and the Brain" that comes off most convincingly. Based on the copious research evidence presented, there can be little doubt that physical fitness and mental fitness are very much linked. The basic point of the feature is that with exercise and physical activity, one's intellectual processes are enhanced and fortified, while without healthy regular workouts, one's neurons shrivel and one's intelligence wanes. To quote the opening article, "No matter your age, it seems, a strong, active body is crucial for building a strong, active mind."

Point clearly proved, and point well taken, Newsweek.

Just one thing. For the love of God, don't let Stephen Hawking see this magazine.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I NEED HELP?

2007-03-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat, I want to apologize to my multitude of faithful reader (Wassup, Muggsy! Hope they've restored your exercise yard privileges!) for not having posted for a number of days which I am too distracted to calculate at the moment. Just a few quick pickup thoughts in passing:
I'm not saying it would be a good idea, but I bet that if someone out there had one or two kids with serious, MAJOR medical expenses for chronic or congenitial or just way bad fucking luck medical conditions, and that person happened to drive a truck right over Karl Rove, to the extent that the coronor, after giving nature 12-15 hours to take its course, declared the late Rovester deceased of natural causes, well, I think it likely that certain unnamed interests might be more than willing to front the expenses for...wait...hold it...shh...oh shit, they're doing a bed check! Delete this at once. Ha ha. Just kidding. Even so..

ALL CHANGE IS BAD, PART 152

2007-03-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

Although I enjoy expressing derision for teenagers today who "don't know how good they've got it compared to my generation blah quack babble" as much as anyone my age, I wince with sympathy for the adolescents of Pequannock Township, New Jersey, where they just announced that about 75 percent of the local high school students will now be randomly given a test for ethyl glucuronide, which can detect whether they've consumed alcohol anytime in the previous 80 hours. A test conducted on a Monday morning would cover everything back to midnight the previous Thursday. Holy shit.

And I thought the goddam chemistry tests were hard to pass.
I wouldn't have made it through my sophomore year without a suspension.
Well, unless they graded the test on the curve.

I also enjoy Daylight Savings Time as much as anyone, but as Groucho Marx once said to a mother of 13 on "You Bet Your Life,"
"I love my cigar, too, but I don't enjoy having it shoved up my ass."

Hmm. That doesn't look quite right. Actually, I believe it was "...but I take it out of my mouth now and then." Yes, that's it.

In any case, they've decided to move the change to DST forward by two weeks, and the return to Standard Time back one week in the fall. This has ruffled the hair of many who rely on the temporal accuracy of computers, such as airlines and bomb makers and the like, because the computers will not only fail to shift to DST on the new date, but will shift again on the old date after adjustments have been made.

I don't care, of course.

But I am annoyed by the change because it takes place just as we've gotten to the point where my wife no longer has to take a flashlight with her when she walks the dog at 7 a.m., and also no longer has to carry a Stoner assault rifle, which is strongly recommended by law enforcement officials for anyone venturing out of their homes after dark or before dawn if they live within a certain distance from Richmond, California.

I believe the current official "hazard radius" is 350 miles.

But now she'll be plunged back into the darkness for what--four more weeks or so?
It sucks, I tell you.

Still, I've got to admit that she does look really hot in body armor.

GETTING BITCHY IN THE EMERALD CITY

2007-02-23T13:14:00.000-08:00

Today's Facet of Contemporary Reality That Continues To Baffle Me comes to us from Seattle, where touchy residents are most offended about a newly opened pet store aimed at providing for the upscale and discerning female canine. The problem is its name, which is actually quite appropriate.

High Maintenance Bitch.

They're indignant about the name, and even more so that its sign is "visible from a major intersection in the Wallingford district." (For the record, however, I once lived in the Wallingford district for several months and never came across anything major, intersections included. But that was way back.)

In any case, I just don't get it about the word bitch. What the hell is so offensive? It's a female dog, for Chrissake. It's a perfectly acceptable word. I've never understood why or how it is considered to be obscene, or even crude.

Shit and fuck and asshole and piss and pussy and prick and so forth I can understand--although pussy falls into a gray area, and is acceptable when followed by cat, or even a photo of a cat. These words have to do with bodily functions of a personal or repellent nature, or sex, or the organs thereof, and while I wouldn't mind if they appeared daily overhead in skywriting, I can see where people with tighter moral standards might be genuinely troubled.

But bitch, I just don't get it. It's like bastard. It's a perfectly neutral descriptive noun, used as a fairly mild insult, compared to numerous possible alternatives. And their clientele consists quite literally of high maintenance bitches: pampered, upper-middle-class female dogs.

I could understand if people took offense at, say, a clothing store for gay males called High Maintenance Cocksucker, or even one for African Americans called High Maintenance Nigga.

But High Maintenance Bitch? The only thing that phrase calls to my mind is Martha Stewart.

ODDS THAT JAY LENO WILL DO MORE OR LESS THIS GAG TONIGHT: 3-1 IN FAVOR

2007-02-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

George Bush yesterday told a gathering of businessmen that excessive salaries for incompetent CEOs had to be reined in, and called for corporations to tie executives' compensation to their performance on the job. By that standard, I calculate that Bush should not only return his entire salary for the past six years, but also owes the country $184 billion.

NEXT STOP, HONEY JUNCTION

2007-01-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

Actual news item today:

"NEW YORK (AP) - Available soon from City Hall: an official New York condom in a jazzy wrapper, perhaps one printed with a colourful subway map or some other city theme.
New York City hands out 1.5 million free condoms a month in ordinary wrappers, and health officials figure people would be more likely to actually use them if the packaging were more distinctive."

Yes indeed, nothing puts me in an amorous mood faster than images of the New York subway system. And who wouldn't want to insert their manhood into something that calls to mind a subway train roaring down the tracks. Presumably, they'll be available in urine- and vomit-scented versions. With little slogans printed thereon, such as "Get your freakin hands off me, asshole!" and "You call that a dick?"

I am reminded of a bit I used to do onstage...
"I just read where Safeway is going to start selling their own brand name condoms, which I thought was in questionable taste until it occurred to me that it's hard to come up with a better, more appropriate name for condoms than...Safe way.
Well, of course, maybe...Lucky.
Or...Pay 'n Pak.
Long's.
Piggly Wiggly.
Never mind."

Then Lucky supermarkets was bought out by Albertson's, and the comedy scene dried up; a one-two punch that convinced me to retire. Que sera.

THREE STRIKES VS. BALL FOUR

2007-01-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

All the recent harrou over Barry Bonds' alleged use of speed, coming on the heels of the Great Steroids Uproar, provoked me to do a swift scan of Ball Four, the first great inside baseball tell-all book, written by major league pitcher Jim Bouton in 1970. Note that year. 1970. 37 seasons ago.

My little search for irony produced four relevent excerpts, reproduced verbatim below. My favorite would have to be the last one, which depicts a kind of chemical prequel to roid rage.

As some notable foreign personage--I'm thinking either Churchill, Einstein, or Tokyo Rose--once said, "To understand America, you must understand baseball."
True enough, brother.

"How fabulous are greenies?" The answer is very. Greenies are pep pills -- dextroamphetamine sulfate -- and a lot of baseball players couldn't function without them. [p. 80]

We've been running short of greenies. We don't get them from the trainer, because greenies are against club policy. So we get them from players on other teams who have friends who are doctors, or friends who know where to get greenies. One of our lads is going to have a bunch of greenies mailed to him by some of the guys on the Red Sox. And to think you can spend five years in jail for giving your friend a marijuana cigarette. [p. 159]

At dinner Don Mincher, Marty Pattin and I discussed greenies. They came up because (John) O'Donoghue had just received a season supply of 500. "They ought to last bout a month," I said.
Mincher was a football player in high school and he said, "If I had greenies in those days I'd have been something else."
"Minch, how many major-league ballplayers do you think take greenies?" I asked. "Half? More?"
"Hell, a lot more than half," he said. "Just about the whole Baltimore team takes them. Most of the Tigers. Most of the guys on this club. [Seattle Pilots, pre-Mariners] And that's just what I know for sure." [p. 198]

John Kennedy flew into a rage at [umpire] Emmett Ashford over a called strike and was tossed out of the game. Still raging, he kicked in the water cooler in the dugout, picked it up and threw it onto the field. Afterward we asked him what had gotten into him. He really isn't that type. And he said, "Just as I got called out on strikes, my greenie kicked in." [p. 206]

ACROBATTY

2007-01-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

On CNN this afternoon Wolf Blitzer--whose first name I originally dismissed as far too contrived and precious until it dawned on me that it's probably short for the very common and unpretentious Wolfgang--mentioned a pro-surge political organization called CALM, for the Campaign for American Leadership in the Middle-East.

I had an immediate problem with that name. It a way, it's even more aggravating than Wolf would be even if Wolf were an affectation. It's an example of what you might call the Labored Acronym Syndrome, in which individual words must be arranged in an unnatural, even uncomfortable sequence simply to justify an easily-remembered acronym. Even worse, the name is larded with articles and conjunctions that are simply omitted from the final acroname. In this case, fully eight words are reduced to a mere four letters. (The hyphen in Middle-East is nothing but a cheap ploy to delete the final E.) Why do they do these things, I wonder.

And in this case, the answer comes to me immediately. The more efficient, natural phrasing of the organization's title would be Campaign for American Middle Eastern Leadership. Makes sense. Rolls right off the tongue. Won't be used in a thousand years. Why? Because the resulting acronym would be CAMEL.

Is it possible that people in that part of the world would take great and indignant offense? Gee, I don't know. Is the Mullah Omar a Muslim? Does a dromedary shit in the dunes?

THE SUCKHOME SYNDROME

2007-01-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

There has been much questioning in the media the last few days as to why newly-freed Shawn Hornbeck, who was kidnapped by Michael Devlin at age 11 in 2002, never made an attempt to escape from Devlin on one of the many occasions on which it would have been easy and totally safe to simply walk away and go, if not home, at least to the nearest police station. The answer seems fairly obvious to me.

Not to be needlessly harsh or superficial about it, but have you seen his mother and stepdad? Have you heard them express themselves? These people would lower property values at a Bakersfield trailer camp. Looking at stepdad, one can only think, as I did, "Jesus, I hope I never lose that many teeth." As for mom, she looks like she could have posed for the label on a bottle of iodine. My guess is that even at age 11, they gave Shawn the willies.

Note that Shawn's parents go by the last name of Akers, while Shawn chose to remain a Hornbeck. When my mom remarried, I took my stepfather's name. It was my way of indicating that I wished to be part of, and identified with, my family. Shawn evidently didn't quite feel that way.

Boiled down, I think he stayed with Devlin for five years because Devlin never made him watch "Hee Haw" re-runs.

EXCESS BLOGGAGE VOL. 285

2007-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

As noted in previous Bloggage postings, I'm reasonably confident of the validity of each of these randomly culled items, and have more-or-less respected sources for each. Read and enjoy...

NO "SEX," PLEASE, WE'RE OXFORD ENGLISH
According to research by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the 25 most commonly used nouns in English are: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life, hand, part, child, eye, woman, place, work, week, case, point, government, company, number, group, problem, and fact. Given the absence of my own favorite three-letter noun, it's reasonable to conclude that the researchers were not talking to the right, or at least the most likely to reproduce, people.

CALL NEGATING
Under the heading of Long Overdue Technological Advances I hereby pass on the announcement by South Korean cell phone manufacturer LG that it will shortly begin marketing the new LP4100 model, which includes a breathalyzer feature that, when the user blows into it, flashes a warning if he or she has a blood alcohol level over .08, and even more valuable, can be programmed to prevent the user from calling certain ill-advised phone numbers while hammered. I trust the Nobel nominating committee will take notice. Then again, no I don't.

CAT'S ASSET
The price of a sneeze-free, hypoallergenic cat, bred through selective genetic divergence, for those who love but are allergic to cats: $4,500.

TERRORISTS 2, LOGIC 0
The amount that the Department of Homeland Security has budgeted to prevent terrorists from playing bingo for money in Kentucky, and I swear this is true: $36,200. The amount the DHS has budgeted to provide a trailer for the Madisonville, Texas October Mushroom Festival, same as above: $30,000.

DUNCE DRIVING
According to a National Drivers Test survey, roughly 18 million current licensed drivers in the US would flunk a state driver's test if they took one today.

CRASS ROOTS POLITICS
The estimated number of front groups that have been funded by Exxon Mobil since the late 1980s and devoted to publicly denying, refuting, belittling or minimizing the notion of global warming: 40.

W...A...G...E...R...I...
At least $70,000 in bets were placed with the offshore gambling Web site PinnacleSports.com this year on the outcome of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Odds that the winner would be wearing glasses were 4-to-7.

FAIR OR FOUL?
Since major league baseball imposed a strict new ban and testing program for steroids in 2005, home runs have increased by 9 percent, from an average 2.06 per game to 2.25. 47 percent of baseball fans surveyed think this is evidence that players are still using performance-juicing drugs.

A WHOLE NEW CALLING
It's estimated that 10 percent of worldwide music industry revenues now come just from ringtone sales.

WITCH WAY WE'RE GOING
The number of Americans who claimed Wiccan as their religion in 1990: 8,000. In 2001: 134,000.

IT'S NOT CALLED A KUMQUAT FOR NOTHING
According to a sex survey published in 2001 in The Portland Mercury, 6 percent of those polled claimed to have had sex with fruit, while 10 percent admit to doing the bad thing with vegetables.

MOM'S MAIL

2007-01-05T16:01:00.000-08:00

Mom's mail was interesting today.

Mom is in a nursing home and has been since mid-2002. At her request, I had taken over the management of her financial and medical affairs a year or so before that. As a consequence, I've been getting her mail, of which the vast majority for several years was either from conservative political (read: GOP) groups asking for money, or fundamentalist Christian (read: religious snake oil salesmen) groups asking for money.

I never sent money, which will hardly come as news to anyone who knows me even a little bit. So there are considerably fewer solicitations of funds coming Mom's way these days, given a good five years of thoroughly unresponsive behavior on her/our part.

But every now and then, we get one. A live one. Some sucker who bought an obviously outdated mailing list based on something fiduciary that Mom did back in the days when she was enthralled by Rush Limbaugh and/or Pat Robertson, and donated to various of their copious, ideologically mercenary ilk.

In any case, those two wings of the American Eagle model 2007 came a-flapping in a recent mail, in the form of a large and softly bulgy manila envelope from the American Bible Society. The envelope had two messages, or maxims, or slogans, or statements of principle, printed on its front.
One of them was "One Nation, Under God, Indivisible; With Liberty And Justice For All."
The other was "Free Gift Enclosed."
Those two declarations, or quotes, or what have you, seem to pretty much sum up the twin underlying sentiments of the Patriotic American circa 2007. Number One: Freedom, Justice, God, all good things, that's us. Number Two: Free stuff! Can't beat that!

Given the bulge, and the return address, I reckoned that the American Bible Society had sent my formerly financially participatory Christian mom something on the order of, well, say, a Bible.

Ha. Bob, you idiot.

Inside, there was an American flag.

There was also a form letter. It was essentially not unlike at least 100 letters of financial solicitation Mom has gotten since I've been intercepting her mail. Here is just a taste. (The parenthetical comments, of course, are mine.)

"My dear friend in Christ,
What would you most likely want in your backpack if you were fighting in Iraq?"
(Well, Rumsfeld's head in a plastic bag sounds about right, or maybe Cheney's balls, or, well, there must be some part of Condy Rice that would fill the bill, although nothing comes quickly to mind.)

"What would you most likely want at your bedside if your son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter was deployed in Iraq?"
(Shouldn't that "was" be a "were"? Sorry, I'm not thinking straight. Imagining that a beloved family member is enmeshed in the ghastliness of the Iraq war has me a bit rattled. At my bedside? Let's see...I've already used up 'Rumsfeld's head in a plastic bag,' right? Geez, this is a toughie. I suspect what I'd most like would be someone from the government with a blank check for whatever emotional or physical damage my relative might sustain over there. No, wait, what the hell, I'm going with Bush's head in a bag.)

In any case, the gist of the mailing was that the American Bible Society -- "Sharing God's Word with the World," a motto that reveals an astonishing unawareness of seven centuries of vigorous Christian proselytizing worldwide -- wants to send Bibles to our troops overseas. Again, to cite the mailer:
"Our goal is to raise $300,000 so that we can distribute Scriptures in the next 12 months to our military. Please send $25 today, to distribute 25 New Testaments to 25 brave Americans."

Which just raises so MANY theological and ideological and otherogical questions. Such as...

What about fearful or even cowardly (as opposed to brave) Americans? No Bibles, or appropriately invigorated faith, for them? Is that the harsh verdict of the ABS?

New Testaments? What happened to the Old Testaments? Is more emphasis on Christian vs. non-Christian theology really what our involvement in the middle east needs right now?

If it costs $1 per Bible to send the Word to the Warriors, and there are only about 140,000 US troops in target battlefield Iraq, what are the other 160,000 or so Bibles for? Does the American Bible Society know something about future troop increases that we don't?

I'm not going to drag this out any further--although there are other elements of the ABS mailer, such as it's Call To Action, that I may want to sink my teeth into at a later time--but I do feel compelled to make one more observation. The flag, a nice, ersatz-nylon type about 56 inches by 34 inches, is quite lovely, and I would be delighted to wave or fly or otherwise display it on some occasion which I truly considered a milestone in the advancement of American freedom and justice for all, such as the day that it was announced that Antonin Scalia had been eaten by sows.

In the meantime, however, I am left to mull over the fact that the flag, even if produced in some Myanmar sweat shop, probably cost the ABS around 50 cents a pop. So, every two flags they send out on spec equals one less Bible sent to G.I.Joe, to guarantee the entree of his immortal soul into the joy and grace of...oops, too late, just got his ass blown away by one of them Improvised Explosive Devices.

And no Bible. Damn.

BEARING MY CROSS

2006-12-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here is my explanation for this posting:

I very much want the Cal Golden Bears to beat Texas A&M in the Holiday Bowl this evening. For one thing, I'm an Old Blue, an alum. For another thing, I want all Texas teams to lose all the time, for various reasons, but mainly because of the Cowboys and Bush and all that "Don't mess with" horseshit.

But I very much fear Cal will get its ass kicked by A&M. For one thing, because Cal looked very mediocre during its final three games, while A&M was knocking off Texas. For another thing, and this is far more significant:

Fate Loathes Me, And Works It So That Whatever I Wish To Occur Will Not Happen. It is the defining goal of Fate to see that I am disappointed.

Ah, but even more than that:

Fate Loathes Me, And Works It So That Whatever I Predict Will Happen Will Not Take Place. Exceeding even the disappointment goal, Fate's ultimate goal is to see to it that I look stupid and foolish.

Therefore, I hereby publicly and in black and white declare that Texas A&M will win the Holiday Bowl. Only an idiot could call this outcome wrong.

Anything for the team.

OH CAROL

2006-12-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

The concept for this posting, because it's almost Christmas and you feel you should crank out SOMETHING in observance of the holiday, was going to be a short list of Christmas Carols Sung By Singularly Ironic Celebrities Or Public Figures.

Pretty simple, and certainly nothing remotely original. For example:
"White Christmas" by Michael Richards,
"What Child Is This?" by former Florida congressman Mark Foley,
and so forth.

But beyond that, executing the concept started becoming difficult. For instance, "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" by Ted Haggard requires that the reader recognize Haggard by name as the big-time evangelical preacher who copped to patronizing a male hooker. Similarly, for "Feliz Navidad" by Tom Tancredo to work, you've got to know that Tancredo (Rep., Colorado) is probably the most rabid foe of undocumented Latinos in the House of Representatives, which is going some.

And I'm sure any visitor to my little Mensa magnet would know that. Just as he or she would certainly know who our current Secretary of State is, and her recent travels on behalf of peace, and yet still might not get "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" by Condi Rice. In part because it's not particularly funny. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" by Donald Rumsfeld would be better, but not by much, being rather an inside-the-beltway joke.

There were some frustrating near misses. If only the song were titled "Do You See What I See?," I'd have a neat little celeb trio hat trick: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. But, number one, the title is "Do You Hear...," and number two, you may not have paid any attention to recent incidents of the gals being papparazied while emerging pantyless from low-slung motor cars. At least I hope you haven't.

And "Oh Tannenbaum" by Mel Gibson just seemed like too great a stretch.

I like "Joy To The World" by Dick Cheney for its sheer preposterous incongruity, but that might not be evident to the casual visitor. And you could plug in a variety of names there, from Osama bin Laden to the Rev. Fred Phelps. The gag is just too generic.

I'm sure there are some worthy possibilities out there, but they're simply not on the cultural radar of most of us. "We Three Kings" by the best poker player alive, for example, but who knows who that is? Or "Silent Night" by the mayor of Richmond, California, a town that echoes with nocturnal gunfire on a regular basis, but if you don't live in the Bay Area, you are mercifully unaware of this. Mayor of Las Vegas might work, though.

But even if it did, it would be too little, too late. The basic premise--droll disconnect between song and performer--is simply too thin, at least this year.
So I'm just going to skip it.
Happy Holidays to all who pass this way.

NEWS UPDATE

2006-12-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

After viewing a videotape of U.S. Senator Tim Johnson, who had undergone emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain, now awake, smiling, and giving the thumbs up from his bed in the hospital's post-op recovery unit, outgoing Senate Majority Leader and M.D. Bill Frist declared the South Dakota Democrat to be clinically dead.

A CHRISTMAS QUARREL

2006-12-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for Christmas music. So much so that, just out of affection, as you can see, I actually write it out as "Christmas" music and not "Xmas" music. That's respect. I even to listen to it for an hour or so a day. Where I am, which is the San Francisco Bay Area, KOIT-FM hurls itself into All Holiday mode this time of year, and you hear a broad spectrum of the inevitable "Sounds of the Season" thereon.

And I'm not parochial or partial about it. I love the religious stuff, for example, because it's just flat out marvelous music. Some of this work was written by real titans, mind you. Handel, the Messiah guy, wrote "Joy to the World," eh? And "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, who wasn't even Christian, and in fact took a peck of shit from Wagner for being Jewish. And "The First Noel" performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir still makes me just shake my head and go wow. I know you think I'm kidding, but the fact is, I went to a Lutheran school for the first four grades--which certainly turned out to be a wasted effort on behalf of the church, bless its heart--and singing this stuff in chorus at our school Christmas fests was always one of the best things about the holiday for me, and it still activates my warm nostalgia neuron, wizened though it is.

But I like the goofball songs, as well. Who doesn't find "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" running through their head this time of year? I include the Muppets version of "The 12 Days" and yes, even the Chipmunks.

Also, the straight but secular genre, your "Chestnuts Roasting" and "Let It Snow" and "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and so on. Great stuff. I'll admit that I'm a bit iffy with regard to rock carols, your "Blue Christmas" and "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and the like. But I'm not ready to slam them.

The point is that it takes a truly artless and inane and phony and worthless piece of Christmas music to set my teeth on edge. There are very few of these, but as we enter this season of peace and giving and brotherhood, I think we should also take note of how even such a lovely holiday can be afflicted with the stench of raw crap. Here, off the top of my head, are the worst Christmas songs ever produced, presented in roughly ascending order of irksomeness.

"Holly Jolly Christmas" by Burl Ives. Some lyrics are so deliberately and blatantly moronic that your gag reflex revs up. For instance: "Have a holly jolly Christmas, and in case you didn't hear, oh my golly have a holly jolly Christmas this year." In case I didn't hear? You just sang the same goddam line, how could I not hear it? Do I look like a lawn ornament, or what? Yeah, it's just a silly little thing, I know, but it drives me nuts.

"Frosty the Snowman" by anyone, but particularly Gene Autry, who could have stopped with the perfectly charming "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," but oh no, couldn't let well enough alone, especially in a situation that fairly cried out for a cheap musical sequel to capitalize on the Rudolph momentum. A pure exercise in avarice. Fie on Frosty. I leave tracks of yellow on Frosty.

"Melakeliki Maka" by some kind of 1940s Don Ho vocal group. I can't vouch for the spelling, which I've made a phonetic stab at, but according to the song it's "how we say Merry Christmas on a bright and warm Hawaiian Christmas day." This just doesn't work. Hawaii and Christmas simply don't go together. Think eggnog and poi. I can't imagine that native Hawaiians ever needed a word for "merry," let alone "Christmas." This is just more missionary brainwashing at work. There exists a whole society of Christians in Lebanon, and I'm sure there's a Lebanese phrase for "Merry Christmas," but that doesn't mean you need to enshrine it in song. Same principle at work here. Shut up and surf. (And before I get accused of racism or Eurocentrism, I'm just fine with "Feliz Navidad.")

"My Grown Up Christmas List" by Barbra Streisand. I'm grown up now and what I want for Christmas is peace and kindness and humanitarianism, or as the lyrics put it, "everyone to have a friend, and right to always win, and love to never dim," and at this point you drive your car into a light standard just to short out the radio. "We snuck into Bob's Christmas and replaced Santa Claus with Oprah Winfrey. Let's see if he shits." Thanks for dragging me back to reality and its endless supply of anti-cheer.

"Christmas in San Francisco" by God only knows who, but it sounds like he probably wrote it himself. Indeed, it sounds as if a chimpanzee or parakeet could have written it. San Francisco blah blah wonderful blah blah fog blah blah greatest place on earth. The lyrics make "I Left My Heart" sound like Shakespeare wrote it. This offal would be an insult to Tulsa or Duluth, let alone S.F. In any other city in the world they would use the CD as a coaster. Shame on KOIT. (Note: this is not to be confused with "It's Christmas Once Again in San Francisco," a kind of incongruously country treatment that has a little fun with the Bay Area's whole no-sleighs-or-snowmen classic yuletide disconnect.)

"Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart" by some mooning, resentful female singer whose identity I don't even care to know. That may not be the actual name of the song, but its refrain--repeated over and over and OVER relentlessly--is, "Last Christmas I gave you my heart, the very next day you gave it away, something something tears, this year I'll give it to someone special..." Basically, she went to bed with some guy from marketing after the office party last year and he never called or even e-mailed and she's still bitter. This isn't a carol; it's not even about Christmas--it makes no other reference to the holiday than the "last Christmas" phrase. It could have been the Labor Day picnic! She's just venting! (Indeed, it's probably no coincidence, or surprise, that every year come December this woman is on KOIT, singing the same song, year after year.) And the music is even worse than the lyrics.

"Rapping at Christmas." By any rap or hip hop group or singer. I've never heard, or even heard tell of, any Christmas rap music, but I'm sure it's out there--something on the order of "All I Want for Christmas is My New Front Grillz" or "Violent Night"-- and eventually KOIT will play some. And I'll hate it.

ROOM AT THE INN

2006-12-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

For almost 15 years, Gloria and I slavishly observed a holiday schedule that had her heading out on a three-day drive down to Long Beach every December 21 or so--we can be specific about the date because it always seemed somehow ironic to us that each year, on the first leg of her winter trek south, we spent the shortest day of the year and also, for her springtime trip south, the longest day of the year, at the Butterfly Lodge in Pacific Grove, California, which lies cheek by jowl and immediately south of Monterey.

She made the pilgrimage to her parents' home in December and June each year with an almost mechanical regularity until her dad George passed away several years ago. Part of the ritual was that I would drive separately to her first night's lodging where we would spend the night, parting the next morning. And we almost always stayed at the Butterfly Lodge, because it enjoyed the two absolute requirements to qualify for our patronage, which were and continue to be (1) that it has a pool, and (2) that it accepts dogs.

I don't know that Gloria actually swam in the Butterfly Lodge pool more than two or three times, and those were always on our June 21 (or thereabouts) visits. There were other lodgings in the immediate area that took dogs, and we bunked at one or more of them on occasion, just to check out the terrain, but always returned to the Butterfly. And I can't exactly say why. We were disappointed by the happy hour fare they offered in the late afternoons, although you couldn't beat the breakfasts. And to reiterate, Glo very rarely used the pool. But the location offered two terrific dog walks, one along the ocean, the other along an old railroad spur line a few blocks inland.

Why I bring this up, is that it occurs to me every now and then to wonder if the staff at the Butterfly, whose paying guests we were twice a year most (but not all) years from around 1989 to 2003, ever wonder about us. Why we no longer show up as we reliably did with, literally, the solstices each year. What may have became of us, that couple that always had a yellow lab and the woman always wore hats. Whether our absence is indicative of some unhappy experience and, even worse, one that might somehow show up on their AAA review.

Of course, I like to think that somewhere down at the Lodge there is a sage and savvy veteran housekeeper who now and then recalls our visits and nods to a young protege and surmises, "I got a sawbuck says she killed him in his sleep."

TORTURED LOGIC

2006-11-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

"Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year? Is that torture?"
-- Defense attorney Guy Womack, defending US soldier Charles Graner, accused of such Iraqi prisoner abuses as forcing them to form naked human pyramids.

(AP -- Washington -- 12/15/06) Declaring that "I like the way this guy thinks," President George Bush today signed an order authorizing the use by the CIA and US military of the new Womack Interrogation Guidelines, as suggested by Bush's recently appointed Deputy Attorney General For Intelligence Acquisiton, former defense lawyer Guy Womack. Among the interrogation measures recommended, and the reasoning behind their justification, are:

1. Bleeding prisoners once a month -- because cheerleaders, at least female cheerleaders, well, you know.

2. Getting prisoners so drunk that they pass out cold and are then sexually violated by drunken young male athletes -- another activity cheerleaders are frequently reported being involved in.

3. Hitting prisoners alongside the head with long L-shaped sticks -- because that's routinely the high point in American hockey games.

4. Throwing hard, fist-sized, cowhide-covered balls at prisoners' heads at upwards of 90 miles an hour -- because that happens all the time in major league baseball games, especially if Roger Clemens is playing.

5. Hurling prisoners downhill into trees at 40-60 miles per hour -- a common occurrence in skiing...or are you saying that these terrorist scum somehow deserve better than Sonny Bono?

6. Having prisoners eat worms, goat intestines, squid eyes or live cockroaches -- which countless Americans have enthusiastically volunteered to do if it would get them on some reality TV show.

7. Forcing prisoners to wear dog collars and to be led around on all fours by a leash -- a procedure that more than a few State and Defense Department officials are known to pay women generously to subject them to.

8. Having prisoners punch one another in the face with all their might -- which a number of Americans were more than willing to do for little more than a pack of cigarettes in "Bumfights," a much underrated video series.

9. Stuffing prisoners into supermarket shopping carts and rolling them at high speed into concrete walls -- something that numerous American adolescents seemed thoroughly delighted to do on "Jackass," a popular cable series.

10. Making prisoners stand in line outdoors, in terrible weather, with no restroom facilities or hot food, for hour after hour after hour -- a ritual that thousands of videogamers happily participate in to get their hands on product every time Sony or Microsoft crank out a new XBox or Playstation, not to mention half the American public on the day after Thanksgiving.

BOOLAH BOOLAH, BOOGA BOOGA

2006-11-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

Cal versus USC was not supposed to be "the other game" that it has been reduced to. Back in the dawn of the football season, it was ranked by prognosticators right up there with Ohio State versus Michigan. But that was before the men of Troy dropped trou for Oregon State and the Bears picked up the soap in the Arizona shower. In a way, that's a good thing. The only thing at stake for Cal will be the Rose Bowl, not a possible national championship, which means I will bleed out of only one ear if USC takes and holds a lead, as opposed to both ears and nostrils.

The really good news is that I'm not an Ohio St. or Michigan fan or alum. I don't think I could take the pressure. I would need transfusions before halftime. Not only will the national championship probably follow the winner home like a Collie, but the game has taken on downright spooky dimensions. Here's what I mean.

There is an actual punk rock band, evidently of former Ohio St. students, that plays a fairly limited number of engagements in a geographically limited market; to be honest, I'm guessing about that. I ran across them on the Net today. What I do know is that every year, the night before the Ohio St. - Michigan game, they play an event called the Hate Michigan Dance. The name of the band is the Dead Schembechlers, which is a play on the Dead Kennedys, and the name of Michigan's most successful and renowned football coach. I don't know what coach Schembechler's reaction to this has been, or if he's even aware of the band, and now I'll never have the chance to ask him. Because Bo Schembechler died this morning.

And tonight, the Dead Schembechlers take the stage amid more irony than even they can ever have dreaded or hoped for.

There's something about this that should tell me something. And that something is: which way to bet the game.

This is clearly a sign, or an omen, but of what? That powers beyond our feeble ken have thrown their lot with the Ohioans? Or that God has taken Bo in trade for a trouncing of the Buckeyes tomorrow?

Actually, I'm not betting that or any other game, and I couldn't care less which team wins. I'd just like to see one of them playing Cal on New Year's Day. Even if it were to mean that, say, Joe Kapp must die.

AND AS LONG AS YOU'RE IN TOWN, CHENEY LIVES JUST DOWN THE ROAD THERE

2006-11-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

There have been several news reports that the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq released a tape in which he declared that Islamic Jihadists will not rest or give quarter until they have blown up the White House, preferably while George Bush is in residence.

To which I enthusiastically give the only proud, patriotic, and appropriate response:
"Bring it on."
I mean it. Seriously. Please.
Here, I'll hold your djellaba, or whatever the hell you call that coat.

After all, to paraphrase a certain commander-in-chief, if we don't fight them in D.C., we'll have to fight them in Oakland.

GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS

2006-11-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

Gloria and I were watching the Tigers-Cards World Series game the other week, not because we particularly cared about the outcome, although we have a sort of sentimental attachment to Tony LaRussa because (1) he used to manage the A's, and (2) he founded the Animal Rescue Foundation, and (3) he and I go back to our salad days in the Tobacco Chewing Club at Yale.

Actually, we were mainly watching the game with a sense of relief that no matter what the outcome was, the A's couldn't lose it.

And it occurred to me, as the TV broadcast crew were discussing switch hitting, that before the year 1860 or so, nobody on the face of the earth knew, or cared, which way another human being swung a bat. I'm not even sure there was such a thing as a bat, unless you're talking about airborne rodents, before 1860. Well, there was cricket, of course. When did cricket start?
Come to think of it, why is there a sport named after an insect?
And for that matter, why is there an item of baseball equipment named after an airborne rodent?
Why am I getting so far off the track?
What makes me think there is a track?

It just struck me that here was a very isolated and specific capability of the human physiology--to swing a club-shaped object on a lateral level with extraordinary speed, power, and pinpoint accuracy--that had virtually no cultural significance or value for most of human existence--unless, perhaps, you were a competition lumberjack--and then overnight, historically speaking, it suddenly did, and still does.

There's something vaguely quirky about that. Although this is probably a phenomenon that dates back to the stone age: the odd and largely useless application of physical ability that suddenly rises from utter pointlessness into highly-valuable status due to technological or cultural demand.

Go back far enough, and it's the ability to rub two sticks together, never previously considered much of a plus around the cave until it became a sudden fast-track to the much-sought-after gift of fire. Fast forward far enough, and it's having the quickest thumbs on the block when it comes to video gaming, a subject I won't even attempt to pretend to be conversant on.

My favorite example, actually, is dialing a phone, an application of human dexterity that existed not at all until Bell's invention in 1876, and which with the imminent domination of cell phones will have become a veritable physical anachronism by 2008 at the latest. Here you have a circular hand motion that rose from irrelevance to the level of almost universal application and even indispensability, and then back again, all in something like 135 years.
That's not a tremendous lifespan. There are people in the Balkans almost that old. It's like the Pony Express of physical dexterity.

Readers of this site are invited to contribute their own favorite Handy But Singularly Specific Physical Skills, such as Putting for Par, Negotiating Men's Briefs in Order to Urinate, and something you're engaged in right now, Manipulating a Mouse.
I've already got dibs on Tying a Necktie.

FORGIVE ME. IT'S A WEAKNESS OF CHARACTER. I BLAME IT ON ALL THOSE YEARS OF WRITING FOR PENTHOUSE.

2006-11-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I would be unable to resist bringing the Actual News Item below to the attention of those persons unfortunate enough to be reading this blog, any more than I could refrain from immediately coming up with the following possible headlines for it:

Kill This Crazy Bastard Before He Screws Things Up For All Of Us
Adding A Colorful New Dimension To The Whole "Volunteerism" Concept
The Sperminator
Paging Angelina Jolie!
The Ultimate Stocking Stuffer
Test Pilots Wanted: Must Have The Writhe Stuff

And now the item...

Women wanted to test sex machine

A Serbian man who has invented a sex machine for women is appealing to western women to test his device.
Nesa Proka, from the central town of Krusevac, made the appeal after failing to find any willing Serbian women.
He has taken out a patent on what he says is the "ultimate sex aid" for lonely women after spending three years working on it.
The machine, which runs on a 390 volt electric engine, simulates sex and has a seven and a half inch artificial 'penis'.
He said: "My sex machine has an artificial penis that can make up to 180 moves in a minute. A man can only manage that intensity of movement for about five seconds but the machine can do it for as long as the woman wants.
"And it comes with a set of controls to fully regulate the speed and intensity a woman for individual sex."
But Proka said he would have to market it in the west because he had not been able to find any Serbian woman to test it out.
"Western women are more liberal. I couldn't find a woman here to try the sex machine," he told local daily Glas Javnosti.
But he did admit that some local women were curious about his invention and a few had come into his garage where he keeps it locked away just to look at it.
One reportedly told the newspaper: "If I had a machine like that at home I would never go outside the front door."

Also, as your reward for actually reading through the above, the following I have plucked from the Defective Yeti website, 10/27/06 posting. Don't know who he(?) is or where she(?) got it from, but it's an occasionally recurring feature. It's a sampling of highlight quotes pulled from negative film reviews. It's amusing.

The Bad Review Revue

School for Scoundrels : "To call it slight is to slight the word 'slight.'" -- David Elliott, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

Man of the Year: "Many actors were paid to pretend Williams is still funny." -- Chris Hewitt, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

Employee of the Month: "It's simply too depressing that people sat in a boardroom, read this script and said, 'We're ready to go!'" -- David Gilmour, GLOBE AND MAIL

One Night With The King: "Dear Lord, why must Your most ardent followers unleash such bad movies in Your name?" -- Josh Bell, LAS VEGAS WEEKLY

Flyboys: "If the current legroom in economy class doesn't make you resent the birth of the Wright Brothers, Flyboys certainly will." -- Michael Booth, DENVER POST

The Grudge 2: "Likely to induce deja vu. Not the cool, eerie deja vu, but the 'Hey, isn't that exactly what happened in the first movie?' deja vu." -- Michael Ordona, LOS ANGELES TIMES

The Covenant: "Movies like this are why we have eyelids." -- Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
[ link | Bad Review Revue]

PULLING OUT

2006-10-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Reading USA Today today, I ran into a half-page of survey results on the topic which has become the Sutter's Mill of the polling industry, Iraq. And of course there were the specific questions regarding how soon the US should (A) cut and run, (B) withdraw our troops, (C) disengage militarily, or (D) strategically redeploy personnel, depending on your favorite euphemism for "get the hell out."

They polled both Americans and Iraqis, which seems thoughtful of them. 48 percent of us here in the states think we should pull out immediately or within a year, while 43 percent say we should "Withdraw but take as many years as needed," and if that makes any sense to you, then you're better at finding sense in self-cancelling statements than I am. Also, 9 percent of us think the situation would be improved by the presence of more Americans carrying guns.

As for the Iraqis, they're surprisingly far from unanimity on this subject, although, come to think of it, they seem to be characterized by an aversion to unanimity on most subjects. In any case, 37 percent want us out in six months, 34 percent within a year, 20 percent within two years, and again, there's a quirky 9 percent, which in this case wants us to stay until the "security situation is settled," which will be about the time my mother gets a gang tattoo.

The fact is, George Bush is not going to withdraw American troops to any significant degree as long as Saddam Hussein is alive. There were no WMDs. There's no democracy. No cheering crowds throwing flowers. No increase in homeland security. The deaths of some 2,800 US troops has accomplished only one item on the neocons' To Do list: they took out Saddam.

The hideous reality for the Bush Administration is that the minute our troops are gone, there will be nothing to stop the Iraqis or their ramshackle government, left to their own devices and desperate to salvage their country, from brokering some deal which would include Saddam not being executed. And to the White House, a live Saddam is an unthinkable Saddam. Even, in the worst-case-screaming-nightmare sense, a potential resurgent and triumphant Saddam. There would be then absolutely no aspect of Bush's Iraq war which was not a total failure. He would go, in history, from failed president to laughingstock. As long as Saddam lives on, so does our large-scale military presence.

As a corollary to this premise, here's a prediction: If Saddam has not been found guilty and executed by the time Bush's term of office is up, he will die--of natural causes, or choking on a pretzel, or spontaneous combustion--in custody.

ROBERT S. "BOB" READS THE MAIL

2006-10-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Lois Denominator or Your Town, Ill. writes to ask, "What will it take for the A's to finally get to a World Series?"
Dear Lois: I'm guessing the bright lights, exhilarating pace and intoxicating ambiance of Fremont.

Mr. Roynton L'Hommediueu of Fiddle City, Nevada writes to ask, "How goddamn dumb can you be?"
Dear brother L'Hommediueu: What the hell kind of name is that? As for how dumb I can be, during this year's draft for my fantasy pro skateboarding league, I spent $6.95 for Franklin D. Roosevelt. I think that probably says a lot.

Dr. Seusschef of Boing, Idaho writes to ask, "With a mind as twisted and pessimistic as yours, I'm sure you've come up with some hellish and catastrophic vision of how this whole Iraq business turns out."
Dear Doctor: Yes, I have.

Dr. Seusschef of Boing, Idaho writes back to ask, "Well, ASSHOLE? What is it? Your vision of the Iraq thing, I mean. Jesus."
Dear Doctor: The Iraqis hate and resent and have spent several years increasingly devoted to the enthusiastic killing of one another, along the three major lines of Shiite, Sunni and Kurd. The Americans will leave, because at some point we will, as a nation, wake up, rub our eyes, take a look at what we are in bed with, cringe and shudder horribly, stealthily dress and put on our shoes and get the hell out of there. When that happens, the people left in Iraq will have two choices: actually literally kill every member of the other two lines, which would be not only disastrous and long-term self-destructive, but exhausting beyond belief, especially if you've ever spent a summer over there. Or: regroup together, putting aside their deeply entrenched feuds and desire for revenge, drawn together by a common enemy that they can feel free to despise without retaliation and that they also have a legitimate gripe against. Which would be us. The Iraqis must perforce reunite as something, if not a nation at least a confederation or alliance or glee club or whatever, and in order to do that, they must find some external source of blame for all the shit they have waded through and visited upon one another. Again, us. It wasn't their own mutual detestation of one another dating back 14 centuries that caused all this bad blood, it was the stinking Yankee infidels. So we will wind up with this Muslim country whose only cultural unifying element is its hatred for us, right in the heart of the Mideast. Up to its ass in excess weaponry that we took over there and then left behind in our rush to get back to McAmerica. Does that meet your criteria for hellish and catastrophic, Doctor?

Dr. Seusschef of Boing, Idaho replies, "What? Hmm? I'm sorry, I guess I must have nodded off. That's a nice theory, though, Yes, very clever. Where's the bathroom?"

Anne Ecdote of Gnkwqcbrt, Wales writes to ask, "This "letters to the writer" premise is hardly novel, original, or even entertaining. Aren't you just the least bit ashamed?"
Dear Anne: "Is it just me, or have you put on a few pounds?"

A CANARD DISPELLED

2006-10-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

Just to clear this up, there is absolutely no, repeat, NO truth to the distasteful rumor that distraught and/or disgruntled New York Yankee fans have taken up a collection to buy flying lessons for Alex Rodriquez.

I KNOW I SHOULD STOP BEATING IT BUT GOD I LOVE IT SO...

2006-10-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

INVOICE SUMMARY

From: Dead Horse Productions

For: Creative services: one-liners

Billed To: The Late Show with Conan O'Brian
For: Material for opening monologue, 10/13/06
Item: "I understand he's already working on his autobiography. Yeah, it's a tell-all book...and they say it's going to be a real page-turner."
Fee: $250

Billed To: Robin Williams
For: Concept for upcoming HBO Special
Item: Setup: "It's not just a scandal, it's a genre! They've already
asked me to do a sequel: La Cage au Foleys!"
Fee: $500

Billed To: Saturday Night Live
For: Concept and material for cold opening, "Republican Cock-Us"
Item: Recurring line, "Paging Congressman Foley!"
Fee: $250

Billed To: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
For: Skit re. Pope and Congressional Page sex, 10/15/06
Item: "I therefore order that you be exfoliated..."
Fee: $12.50

MIA ROBERT CULPA

2006-10-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

Ignore that headline. It is vaguely relevent, but really just a self-indulgent and pointless play on words. But, down to business:

Apologies for posting the same Foley blahblahblah two days in a row, but from my end, it didn't come up on the page either day after posting, and I reacted precipitously, as is my wont and predeliction and oh shit I dropped the thesaurus.

Anyway, it's posted now, and for your patience, I offer this observation:

I mentioned recently to Gloria the rather extravagant and even breathless reviews that the new Dylan release has been getting, and how I hadn't bought a new Dylan recording since "Live At Budokan" back in the early 80s, and so she bought his latest when we were recently up for a frolic in Mendocino, and I have to say that if you are heading out from Mendo of a sunny morning southward on Highway 1, you would be challenged to put a better piece of music on the CD player than "Modern Times," which is the name of the Dylan newbie.

But this is all intro to my central point. Which is, and I'm amazed that nobody else has noted this...

Bob Dylan sounds exactly...EXACTLY the way Keith Richards looks.

Thank you, thank you...I'll be here all this week.

I WOULD SAY "ADAM SANDLER AS OSAMA BIN LADEN," BUT HE'D PROBABLY TAKE THE GIG

2006-09-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Ran across a participant Net game at http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2280234
which boils down to "Worst Possible Film Role Casting" and those who may be interested can check it out. Mostly bleah, but particles here and there of the obscure (Gary Busey as Gandhi), the obvious (Bush as President), the far too easy (Paris Hilton as the Virgin Mary), and the cleverly tasteless (Sting as Steve Irwin). Trying to blend all these shortcomings, the only thing that occured to me was Stephen Hawking as Fred Astaire. I'm sure you can do better, and are invited to.

A CONCEPT FOR THE SYMBOL-MINDED

2006-08-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

As we head into another captivating and colorful stretch drive, it has become clear that baseball is more than just hits, runs, outs, and errors these days. The game has taken on new dimensions and elements that no one could have anticipated back when the first box scores were invented. The fact is, traditional scorekeeping symbols are no longer sufficient to account for the realities of the modern game. Here are some proposed new ones to help fans in attendance to fully record the action on the field--or in the stands.

(BOX SCORE SYMBOL)
---ACTION REPRESENTED

(Little beer cup with foam)
---Missed inning while waiting in line for a brewski

(Little empty beer cup upside down, one drop hanging from the cup rim)
---Missed inning while waiting in line to take a leak

(ZZZ's)
---Fell asleep during pitching change

(Little "splatter" doodle)
---Spilled mustard on box score, no idea what happened

(Three little stars)
---Hit in head by foul ball

(Three little Dollar signs)
---Hit in head by foul ball while seated next to lawyer

(Big dollar sign)
---Caught Barry Bonds home run ball

(Three big Dollar signs)
---Hit in head by Barry Bonds home run ball while seated next to lawyer

(Little cork)
---Player called out--bat found to be corked

(Little cork with arms)
---Player called out--upper body found to be corked

(Little red cross)
---Player knocked unconscious by thrown object

(Two little red crosses)
---Player knocked unconscious by drunken fan

(Three little red crosses)
---Player knocked unconscious by delayed drug reaction

(Stick figure with hairy butt)
---Game halted by streaker, male

(Stick figure with boobs)
---Game halted by streaker, female

(Stick figure with boobs and hairy butt)
--Game halted by streaker in San Francisco

(Little hypodermic)
---Player removed from game due to steroid overdose

(Little hypodermic in circle with slash)
---Player removed from game due to steroid withdrawal seizures

(Little hypodermic with handcuffs)
---Player removed from game, arrested for dealing steroids

(“HR” crossed out)
---Long fly ball out that would have been a home run if the batter were still juicing

(Clenched fist)
---Game halted by fight among fans

(Crutches and IV)
---Game halted by fight among fans over valuable record-setting home run ball

(Band-aid, or dove of peace)
---Game halted by “brawl” among players

(Small hole in scoresheet)
---Umpire blew call so badly, scorekeeper stabbed scorecard with pen in fit of rage

(Bat and ball with slash through it)
---Game called because of players' strike

(Umpire’s mask with slash through it)
---Game called because of umpires' strike

(Rx symbol with slash through it)
---Game called because of pharmacists' strike

(Little car or empty stadium seat)
---Left after 7th inning to beat traffic

(Little Gameboy or logo)
---Actual game too slow and boring; missed inning while playing much more exciting MVP Baseball 2005 video game

I LIKE TO THINK OF ALITO AS THE SNEEZY OF THE BUNCH

2006-08-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The pollmeisters at Zogby came out with their annual Look At How Incredibly Stupid The Average American Has Become survey, a little exercise that polling companies indulge in each year because they know it will get them more ink than those studies clearly linking rising oil company profits with increased leukemia among orphans.

And while I am second to none in my belief that The Average American continues to resolutely be as thoroughly ignorant as possible of anything that said American does not find either amusing, sexually arousing, or profitable, these surveys make me want to push a pie into the face of Zogby or Gallup or Stripper (a pun on the poll/pole homonym, eh?) or whoever is doing the questioning.

For one thing, they say that 75 percent of Americans can name at least two of Snow White's seven dwarves, while only 25 percent can name two Supreme Court justices.

So? These figures make perfect sense to me. For one thing, the names of the dwarves are inserted into our heads during our earliest years, and thus become part of our formative, and thus strongest and most ineradicable, memories. For another, the dwarves' names never change! It's always the same seven guys! By contrast, the makeup of the Court is forever changing. Just about the time you think you could recite the entire nine, somebody dies or retires and you've got to come up with a whole new mnemonic. A lot of us just say the hell with it, we can always Google the lineup if we need it.

And finally, the dwarves have simple, everyday words for names: Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Doc, and Bashful. (And no, I didn't have to Google "seven dwarves" for that. Although, to be honest, I'm only partly certain about Sneezy.)

If the dwarf lineup was obliged to follow the rules of reality and mortality as the Court does, all seven of those little suckers would have been long ago dead. There would be an entire new lineup--perhaps the third or fourth such turnover--with new names that, probably, only 25 percent of us would be on top of.

(I like to think the current dwarf assemblage would have names with some contemporary resonance. Something on the order of: Fatty, Horny, Creepy, Junkie, Bipolar, Undocumented, Fearful.)

The poll also reveals that only 37 percent of us can name the planet closest to the sun--Mercury--while 60 percent can name Superman's home planet--Krypton. Again, this stands to reason. We learn of Krypton from a barrage of media--comic books, TV series and major films--not to mention the Table of Elements. Mercury, by contrast, has only planetariums and the Discovery Channel going for it.

And finally, a mere 42 percent of us can name the three branches of government, versus the 74 percent of us who can name the Three Stooges.

Well hell, we get more satisfaction from the latter than the former, so why not? Actually, the Stooges might work as a memory aid in teaching civics. The three branches could be envisioned as Moe--the bossy, pushy, violent, and arrogant but essentially imbecilic executive--Curly--the asinine, clueless, and pathetically goofy legislative--and Larry--like the judicial, the least amusing and seemingly most pointless of the trio.

The only purpose Zogby's latest serves is to remind us that the more we immerse ourselves in trivia and the less attention we pay to politics, the less likely we are to go nuts.

LAST CALL (or) IF YOU'RE SO DEVOUT, WHY ARE YOU ORDERING DOUBLES?

2006-08-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

Let me make sure I've got this straight.

Dangerous liquids, their detection and confiscation, have become the obsession du jour of our varied and almost innumerable agencies in the anti-terrorist sentinal biz. Among the fluid substances that you can no longer take onto a plane in carry-on luggage: everything known to man that is more liquid than an anvil. Among the fluid substances that you can check through in stowed baggage without a care in your evil heart, later detonating by remote control the plastique explosive or anthrax-infused eye shadow or whatever spectacularly deadly concoction you have disguised as a cosmetic happenstance: see above.

And the one substance known to be both flammable and explosive, capable not only of fueling serious destruction just as relates to physical objects, but also known to inflame emotions, provoke misbehavior, and generally induce otherwise law-abiding persons to acts of serious criminal potential? That would be alcohol. Available, for a price, on every flight of any serious mileage, to almost any adult onboard, supplied by and courtesy of the airline.

Hell, stick a little wad of cloth in the neck of that mini-bottle of gin, light it up, and voila: a serviceable, if Lilliputian, Molotov cocktail.

Once again, it appears that I am the only one to perceive the madness.

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF HOTCHA

2006-08-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

If it's hot-ass sex and red-blooded violence you're looking for in the media, let me direct you to the August issue of Pediatrics magazine, which is evidently the heir to the machismo editorial legacy of Saga and Argosy and other chest-hair-action men's mags of the 1950s.

According to today's Chronicle, this month's Pediatrics has one article linking teen sex to listening to sleazy sexual song lyrics, and another linking teen violence to watching wrestling on TV.

Study number one, by the Rand Corp., found that 51 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 who listened "to lots of music with degrading sexual messages" while virgins started having sex within two years, as opposed to only 29 percent of those who listened to little or none of such music. Of course, "degrading sexual messages" can either mean "messages that sex is good" if you're the Family Research Council, or "messages that sex is bad" if you're Hugh Hefner.
The encouraging part of this study is that almost 1/3 of even the most wholesomely-reared kids will start having sex no matter what you fill their heads with--Debby Boone, Kenny G, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, nothing dissuades the little weasels.

Study number two, by the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, found that teenagers who watched wrestling shows like "RAW" and "Smackdown" were more likely to engage in violence, "including carrying weapons and fighting on dates." This, of course, raises a couple of interesting hypotheticals.

For one, if the violence-prone kids had spent their free time listening to sleazy lyrics instead of watching wrestling, their dates would probably have gone a lot better, or at least involved fewer contusions. On the other hand, if the kids who listened to sleazy music had also watched wrestling, maybe the sex would have been better, or at least more memorable. And by the way, shouldn't the Baptist Med Center have been conducting the sex-and-music survey? It seems like a classically Baptist issue. For that matter, you'd think the Rand Corp. would be more likely to take an interest in violence than teen rutting.

So, parents, the question is, what in God's name should you do if you come home and there in the rec room is your teen, watching TV wrestling and plugged into an Ipod with a look of unmistakably sleazy sexuality on his/her face?

Fortunately, the answer may lie with another article in today's Chron, which comes--so help me--from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and warns parents of the dangers of putting children in shopping carts, which caused 24,000 injuries to children last year due to falls and tipovers. Get that kid down to the nearest Safeway and get his/her ass into a shopping cart! The fact that they're large gawky adolescents now almost ensures some serious, debilitating mishap.

If you're lucky, it'll be a spinal cord injury, and voila: problem solved.

THE TIES THAT BIND

2006-07-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out some old files and ran across this item that I had sent to Playboy a year ago, even as I knew full well that it would cause them to reach for the wolfbane and garlic. All I can say, fellow males, is: Be very very afraid. This is what I think they utimately mean by getting in touch with your feelings.

"I’m currently reading about the Huichol tribe of Mexico. They seem to have an excellent understanding and empathy between the sexes. In their culture, when a woman goes into labour, they tie a string around her husband’s testicles. As the pain of her contractions begins to increase in intensity, she regularly tugs on the string, so her beloved can share some of the agony with her. Sounds fair enough to me." -- Fiona McCade, News.Scotsman.com, 4/27/05.

CLASH OF THE TETONS

2006-07-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today's article of interest is brought to you by the Associated Press, which reports that in Wyoming, local law enforcement and other authorities have had it up to here with naked people running around after they get done smashing cars. No, wait, the naked people don't smash the cars. Decent, wholesome family types do that.

Here's the deal: Wyoming police have announced that they are going to seriously arrest and charge people who insist on carrying out the recent tradition of streaking the Teton County Fair at the very end, after the last event. I don't know how much more serious they can get than last year, when they tasered a guy who was streaking with a fire extinguisher. Wait, no, they didn't taser him with a fire extinguisher, he was carrying the...never mind.

All kinds of things come to mind reading this article. First, the phrase it uses in every instance to describe this get-tough attitude is "crackdown." Whenever naked people are involved, you want to work the word "crack" into the piece, even if merely as a syllable.

Second, the authorities emphasize that decency is the key consideration, there are families here, and therefore family values, and good taste must prevail, and oh yeah, we're going to conveniently overlook the fact that this wholesome event is called the Teton County Fair, given that it's in Teton County, in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, and that the word teton is French for TIT. Which is a play on what the mountains resembled to early European explorers, who were invariably male and lonely.

Third, the final event that precedes the streaking? A Demolition Derby. Getting into a car and driving it into as many other cars as violently and destructively as possible? Good clean fun. Brief animated nudity? Crank up the taser.

The showdown this year will occur on July 30, and I believe the Best Western still has accommodations available.

BALL GAME

2006-07-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the Georgia Family Council are all just gnawing on their Bibles with outrage as they endeavor to stop the financial bid by medioctopus Liberty Media to buy the Atlanta Braves. They oppose the deal because Liberty owns On Command, a company that provides in-room hotel/motel porn movies to lonely male or female lodgers or anyone else with time on their hands and a credit card.

Oddly, this Coalition of the Deeply and Variously Offended who are protesting the deal seem oblivious, or at least indifferent, to the fact that the Braves are currently owned by Time Warner, an outfit that also offers adult fare (i.e. fuckflix) over its cable TV service.

Nor, now that we think on it, are they troubled that pro ballplayers are, demographically, one of the major revenue sources for the hotel porn business.

(As for George Steinbrenner being a convicted felon? Not even on the moral radar.)

God help the national pastime when the obvious graphic sexual symbolism of the hotdog dawns on these defenders of purity. "Honey, there's a bit of mustard right there in the corner of your mouth. Yeahhh. I love the way...Oh dear Jesus, this is Satan's game!!!" (Note religious repture embodied by three exclams.)

The story, should it interest any of you sick bastards, is by AP's Charles Odum at http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/07/14/ap2880353.html

BETTER TO BE HEADBUTTED THAN BUTTHEADED, I SAY

2006-07-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

I am rolling my eyes like cheap dice right now, because I am still thinking about the Great Uproar that has ensued over the head-butting of Italian player Marco Materazzi by French player Zinedine Zidane during the final match of the World Cup. The radio sports guys are all aghast. USA Today fretted and clucked. Given the heated reportage, you could easily get the impression that Zidane had not just butted Materzzai in the chest with his head, but had then backed his Citroen over Materazzi's baby. It was an horrendous act which stained the entire soccer world, was the general attitude.

Oh please. As they say in Germany, "Geben sie mir ein break!"

Allow me to quote from the finger-wagging article by the Chronicle's Bruce Jenkins, only because that is the local paper I read, not because Bruce is particularly over the wall on this; I worked with him some years ago and he is eminently professional and thoroughly likeable. But consider...

"One struggles to find anything comparable in the history of American sport." One evidently regards hockey as a Canadian sport. Otherwise one might note that slicing other players with sharpened skate blades and giving them concussions and lacerations with large L-shaped sticks goes well beyond comparable to a head butt. Still, a more valid comparison might be with American football, where head-butting is, coincidentally, an essential part of the game. That's why all the helmets. Compared to what goes on in any typical post-tackle pileup on an NFL field, a head-butt is a warm hello. That photo of Zidane's head meeting Materazzi's chest? It made Bill Romanowski laugh like a loon. That's how he greets his mother. And just so that basketball won't feel left out, there is the occasional clotheslined player flung onto his back on a hardwood floor and left skullcracked and senseless.

"Zidane brought shame on himself, his country, and, remarkably, the worlds' most popular sporting event." Yeah, right. And in New Zealand, their opinion of America still hasn't recovered from the Tyson-Holyfield ear-biting incident. Zidane so shamed the sport that they gave him the Most Valuable Player award afterward. You want something that shames soccer, try the newsreel footage of drunken Brit soccer fans running riot, beating bystanders, charging the field, and burning the nearest village when their team fails, a news item as inevitable each year as the running of the bulls, and not all that dissimilar.

Actually, this isn't that important a matter to me. Bruce Jenkins loves sports far more than I do, so his reaction may reasonably be far more impassioned. It's just that my wife and I disagree about this--she's with Bruce--and this is, for me, a long and windy version of "So there."

THOUGHT FOR THE GAY. UH...DAY.

2006-06-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

I was watching the Gay/Bi/Etc./Etc. Pride Parade on TV just now while the coffee warmed up, and my thoughts turned to the Rev. Fred Phelps, the crackpot homophobic media whore who likes to wave "God Hates Fags" signs at funerals, and as I watched a group of latino drag queens in prom gowns prance by, I thought, "When that old bastard dies, I hope to God his funeral procession looks EXACTLY like this."
I really, really do.

ANN TIPATHY

2006-06-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, I'm thinking that I would dearly enjoy seeing Ann Coulter's head on a pike.
On the other hand, I'm thinking hey, why spoil a perfectly good pike?

Actually, I was reading an item about all the delightful and highly-deserved negative blowback that Trannie Ann (a popular San Francisco reference) is getting for that shit-flinging rant in her latest book that vilified a group of authority-questioning women whose husbands were killed in the World Trade Center attack, and I got to wondering. Has the rightwing harridan finally overdosed on her own vitriol? Will this be the high-water mark of her influence, followed by long and inexorable decline in visibility? Much as prescription drug addiction was to Limbaugh?

I feverishly hope so. I hope it cripples her so thoroughly that it becomes part of the popular lexicon. Like "jump the shark," based on a "Happy Days" episode, became shorthand for pitiful overreach by the mass entertainment media, after which "jump the couch," based on Tom Cruise's chimp impersonation on Oprah, became shorthand for overreach by audience-cultivating celebrities. I'd like to see "jump the widows" become shorthand for overreach by unprincipled, vulgarian culture warriors.

Then again, it occurs to me that that "jump the widows" may already be well-established shorthand--among those middle-aged professional dance partners who work in the cruise ship industry.

OUR NATIONAL HISSY FIT

2006-06-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

If you have somehow managed to avoid encountering any reference in the media to a forthcoming film titled, with all the seductive subtlety of a Karl Rove speech, "Snakes On A Plane," you are a better man, whatever your actual gender, than I am. This thing is everywhere, from Newsweek feature articles to the name of the rotisserie baseball team fielded by the eminent blogger and lapsed Pentecostal Michael J. Robertson. (See link to "Darwin's Cat" website.)

The specifics of the plot may or may not have been already irretrievably revealed to the general public. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. There are snakes and they are on a plane. The sheer flagrancy of the psychological and mass-cultural opportunism and manipulation at work here is breathtaking, even admirable in its raw gall. There won't be an empty seat for the first six showings, wherever you live. People will go in droves to see "Snakes On A Plane" for the same reason they will open e-mail bearing the subject line "Money owed to you." They know they're being hustled. But so what. "Money" and "you" are a linguistic combination beyond our power to resist.

Ditto "snakes" and "plane." Which stars, incidentally, Samuel L. Jackson, a man who seemingly cannot get himself cast in a movie that does not turn into a revenue churn. You could put Samuel L. Jackson in a remake of "Ishtar," or for that matter, "Victory at Sea," and finish in the black. Probably just from the action figure royalties.

Anyway -- aside from the irresistible shamelessness of the concept, the snakes on a plane premise is really just the latest take on the time-honored "trapped with something terrifying" theme. Specifically, "Snakes...Plane" is essentially the original "Alien" plot transplanted from deep space into routine daily life, and made all the more horrific, or at least creepy, because we can easily envision ourselves in the setting.

This basic plot setup has been practically bulletproof over the years, and there's absolutely no reason to think it won't be eternally lucrative. With that in mind, I'll soon be filing with the Writer's Guild to register under my name the following storyline derivatives of the Snakes template.

"Tarantulas On The Richmond BART Line" -- Giant arachnids threaten carnage but ultimately find themselves vastly outgunned by plucky bands of Richmond youth determined to protect their drug turf.

"Giant Squid In A Hot Tub" -- A festive group honeymoon at a luxurious Napa Valley spa goes horribly awry as assorted newlyweds are dragged one by one to a watery doom, despite the lodge's fantastic wine selection.

"Wolves At Brunch" -- Savage lupine marauders choose a particularly untimely Sunday to turn the sumptuously gala atmosphere of the Redwood Room at the Saint Francis Hotel into a veritable Mother's Day from hell.

"Veloceraptors At A Sensitivity Training Seminar" -- Management trainees and their personal assistant interns are torn limb from limb even as they attempt to find and eliminate the source of their savage predators' anger and uncontrollable violence.

"Insurance Salesmen In A Stalled Elevator" -- The horror, the horror. The helpless "prospect" passengers must ultimately draw lots to see who will climb up through the car's ceiling hatch and use the emergency fire ax to sever the cable, thus sending the car and its passengers to their tragic but welcome deaths.

"Dick Cheney In A Duck Blind" -- Away from civilization and ensconced in close quarters with the Veep seemed to be these lobbyists' dream come true, until someone began passing the schnapps around "to cut the chill" and they realized that to the Wyoming were-Republican, everyone was "fair game".

HEIL STARBUCKS

2006-06-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's a rare day when something written about something or someone does not give me chills. The honor today goes to a news item about two graduating seniors at Northpoint (N.Y.) High School who managed to slip quotes into their yearbook, under their respective photos, which were openly attributed to Adolf Hitler. The quotes are real, right out of Mein Kampf, and school officials are tapdancing like Bojangles Robinson on kitchen meth to explain how the quotes got past them, but the chills factor lies in the substance of the quotes themselves. To wit---

"Strength lies not in defense, but in attack."
"The great masses of people...will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

Why chills? Because the first quote could easily pass for the fundamental principle of Bush's approach to foreign policy, while I'm frankly surprised that Karl Rove doesn't have the second quote tattooed on his ass. Indeed, quote #1 is a fairly accurate summation of this administration's approach to governance in general, while #2 is the crux of their political strategy.

And, come to think of it, vice versa.

And here, I always thought Dubya's role model was Churchill.

IN OTHER NEWS, according to a widely-reported and fairly massive study of medical and health plan records by the Kaiser folks, people who drink a cup of coffee each day are at 20 percent less risk of contracting alcohol-induced cirrhosis of the liver, while those drinking four cups a day lower their risk by a full 80 percent. Naturally, being a wine enthusiast, I now drink four coffees a day.

Okay, they're Irish coffees...Is that a problem?

EXCESS BLOGGAGE VOLUME XXXVIIIIIII

2006-06-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Again, we reiterate the basic tenets of this concept: (1) Each of these items are are, if not airtightly (almost a word!) verifiable , at least so help me God from eminently legitimate mainstream sources (major dailies, pollsters, newsmagazines, out of my ass), and (2) strictly for personal amusement and not intended to serve for either sexual gratification or political demagoguery. Okay, some political demogoguery.

CHINA'S GROWTH CURVE
Embry Group, Triumph, Ordifen and every other company producing bras in China report that after years of primarily producing A- and B-cup bras, they are now having to turn out increasing numbers of C-, D- and even E-cups, thus adding a new dimension to the term Developing Country.

CAUSE FOR FAITH
According to a CBS News survey, only 31 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Christian fundamentalism. Only 19 percent have a favorable view of Islam. Only 8 percent have a favorable view of Scientology.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY
One in every 400 students who apply for federal financial aid for college are turned down because of a drug conviction; 189,065 since the restriction was instituted for the 2000-2001 school year.

HAPPY IN THEIR WORK
Because such medications are covered under its contract with the UAW, General Motors spends $17 million per year on Viagra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs for its employees, retirees, and dependents. " Hard up for a job" keeps popping...er...appearing in my mind.

FOLLOW THE MONEY
The amount Dick Cheney was paid last year as Vice President: $205,031. The amount he was paid by Halliburton: $211,465.

FOOLS AND MONEY DEPT.
The amount of Homeland Security funds spent on safety-educational clowns and puppet shows by the Onalaska, Wisconsin fire department: $8,000. By the Des Moines, Iowa fire department: $69,000.

LAWBREAKERS
Three-fourths of all day laborers in the US are illegal immigrants. 43 percent of those who hire them are contractors. 49 percent of those who hire them are individual homeowners.

BRA VO
In April, the women of Cyprus linked together a 70-mile-long chain of almost 115,000 bras, easily busting the old bra-chain record of 79,000 held by the women of Singapore. You open with bras, you close with bras. Thus the great circle of life.

IF HER NAME IS MARY, WE'D BEST KEEP AN EYE ON HER BABY

2006-06-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

According to CBS News, magician David Copperfield has announced his plans to impregnate a woman live, onstage, without physically touching her. Mind you, this phenomenon is scheduled to occur in Germany, where such a feat is not that much of a stretch. But still. Here are the first headlines that came to my mind. Numerous others will, I'm sure, occur to you, whoever you are.

Bleak Magic (or) Where's the Magic in That?

Hocus, But No Pocus.

Deep Trick.

Obviously Has Nothing up His Sleeve.

The Gland is Quicker Than the Eye.

"Oh God, Oh Honey, It's Even Better Than Being Sawed in Half!"

The Great Houduner

JUST HORSING AROUND

2006-06-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

A few days after racing's current poster horse, Barbaro, suffered that grievous shattered lower leg in the Preakness, I had this idea to enter a post to the effect that Senate Majority Leader and MD Bill Frist had viewed films of the accident and declared the horse to be not only in surprisingly good health but ready to run at the Belmont Stakes. But I procrastinated, and then something came up, and then something else, and now it just wouldn't work. Timing is everything in satire. This is probably why my sitcom based on the Kennedy assassination was never optioned.

LIFE IS A GAS

2006-05-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Reading today about how we, meaning the human race, seem determined to blithely ignore the ominous implications for the survival of civilization that are raised by the increase in human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, I discover that fully 5 percent of said gases filling our air are composed of nitrous oxide.

Well there you go. No wonder so many of us tend to laugh it off.

BEAUTY IS IN THE REFLECTED-LIGHT SENSING AND IMAGE-INTERPRETATION ORGANS OF THE BEHOLDER

2006-05-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the first annual InterGalactic Beauty Pageant held on Pavonus III, and I think it's safe to say that, conceptually speaking, the Burning Man Festival has met its match. I'll file a more complete report down the road, but for now just a few highlights and general impressions of the first attempt to evaluate and rank the aesthetic attractiveness of all living things in the known universe.

Over three thousand life-supporting worlds were represented, with almost half of them inhabited by sentient beings. The judging was limited to the sentients, largely out of necessity, although there were charges of "cognitive elitism" lodged by some of the more progressive species. The Prime Directive was scrupulously enforced: no voting for any life form from your own home planet.

I'm proud and delighted to report that Earth landed three life forms in the top 100, no mean achievement given the sheer numbers of contestants. Kudos and hats off to: the rose (# 24), the yellow Labrador Retriever (#63), and the oyster (#9, and go figure).

The most attractive three alien life forms according the homo sapien judges were the sznigix, a desert crawling plant on Nifner (Deneb's fifth planet), the tarpatal, an aquatic color spouter from the oceans of Poit (Altair's giant solo planet), and the boccobochuca, an ectoplasmic air skimming creature of Oooohee (the third world in the Rigel system), which, as it happens, is a dead ringer for Sophia Loren.

No time to go into the various judging categories right now (Talent, Means of Locomotion, Best Use of Bodily Fluids, etc.) except to note that for Most Likable, it wasn't even a contest. Oprah Winfrey in a landslide.

Can't wait to show my slides.

GIMME A C!

2006-05-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

According to the Times Leader online--"Northeastern Pennsylvania's Homepage"--they have these nifty new electronic voting machines in Pennsylvania that permit voters to type in the names of write-in candidates, but Election Bureau officials are upset that voters are instead typing in vulgarities, especially what the T.L. article called "a pair of 'c' words," which I assume means that votes are now being literally and explicitly (as opposed to merely for all practical purposes) cast for c!nts or c!cks!ckers or both.

About time, I say.

ALSO, ADAM SANDLER CLOSING IN ON THAT COVETED G.E.D.

2006-05-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

While reading an item reporting that Jodie Foster gave the commencement address at Yale this year and concluded her remarks by quoting Eminem, I also ran across the fact that comedian--and I use the word in its broadest sense--Yakov Smirnoff received a Masters Degree in Positive Psychology from the renowned Ivy League institution.

What a country.

GIFTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING

2006-05-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

USA Today reports that the vote on the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui was, repeatedly, 11 to 1 for giving him the spike, which means, as the dawn portends the day, that there will now ensue (a) a shitstorm of contemptuous fury that the pigheadedness of one individual resulted in massive injustice, or at least a massive case of justice denied, as well as (b) a great wave of praise for the courage displayed under historically immense pressure by one person of true character, integrity, and devotion to principle.

Personally, I probably would have voted with the loner for the first few ballots, at least, but I'm reasonably sure, given my lack of character, integrity, etc., that I would have caved in time for dinner. For me--and based on talk show calls, newscast interviews and so forth, for many others as well--Moussaoui was far more pathetic than evil, and all the more pathetic for his over-the-top effort to present himself as the embodiment of lethal and vindictive righteousness when he was in fact, and quite obviously, both irrelevant and useless.

And, not to put to fine a point on it, not exactly guilty. The verdict has produced at least one Call and Response in the debate:
C: "If this creep doesn't deserve the death penalty, who does?"
R: "Well, how about somebody who actually physically killed someone?"

Nevertheless, his scorn and callousness toward the victims' loved ones, including even those who spoke against his execution, and his jubilation over the very notion of dead Americans, do tend to leave the observer disposed to disemboweling the sonofabitch, or perhaps loaning him out to the U.C. archery team as a practice dummy. I can certainly understand the frustration and rage felt by those who truly believe he deserved to die. They deserve some release for their emotions. They deserve some satisfaction. So here's what I have in mind:

The Moussaoui Mean-Spirited Gift of the Month Club

Anyone can join, anyone can participate. All it involves is that each month, you send a gift to Zac the Knife, which you have chosen for its sheer cruelness of irony, its ability to underscore and heighten the grimness of life spent in close, constant, and solitary confinement. My first gift, for example, would be a kite.

Subsequent possible gifts, for those interested in joining the MM-SGMC, might include...
Hiking boots and compass
Copy of Playboy
Skateboard
Ping-pong table, paddles and balls
Binoculars
Carry-on luggage
Frisbee
Snorkle gear
Tango lessons
Sunblock

And remember, the important thing is that you don't have to spend a lot.
It's the thought that counts.

TRUTHIMESS

2006-05-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

Nobody has asked me for my observations on the Colbert v. Bush episode at the big Washington Insiders Banquet or my opinion on the question of how truth-to-power acquits itself when compared to the good old days when people, especially those in the comedy performance trade, knew their place.

The most interesting aspect of all this for me was to discover, by listening to KQAK in the morning, specifically a spot of local radio hosted by former mayor Willie Brown and political/topical comic Will Durst, that a number of comedians, Durst among them, felt that Colbert was out of line for making Bush the butt not just of the majority of his gags, but of his entire set. Will, and evidently some others, embraced the comics' principle that if you are going to take a group's money, you do not then go on to ridicule them, unless that is the point of the performance.

I don't know how universally among comics this comics' principle is adhered to. I moonlighted as a standup comic for about 8 years, and for the most part, I agree: the audience is your source of income, and if they are meeting you even halfway--not drunk and drowning you out with babble or insipid heckling, etc.--you don't go for laughs by insulting them. Unless you're an insult comic, Rickles and Bobby Slayton being prime examples, but in such cases, everyone in the audience is, almost invariably, there with that understanding.

But this was not a club gig, performed in a standup comedy venue for people out to hear somebody tell jokes or say things amusingly enough to make them laugh and forget the wretched hopelessness of...
Sorry, getting off the track there.

Again, it wasn't a comedy club gig. Nor was it your typical private comedy performance for some gathering of professional or social group members being rewarded with a few laughs. It was a performance in a situation where people knew there was some likelihood of jokes being made at their expense. This has been the case at these Press Club events since the Early Bob Hope Era. The jabs were much milder then, but nobody in the audience--or the White House--was being widely accused of stealing elections or violating the Constitution or leading us toward a Christian theocracy back then either.

Again, I'm getting off the track. And here's the track:
Colbert was very indiscreet, impolitic, rude and maybe even unprofessional in zapping Bush, but this was a gathering of top-level politicians, media pros, and political fixers and shakers, hardball survivors with skin like kevlar, not the Livermore Kiwanis or Pep Boys' Golden Palm Managers. There has always been a kind of "roast" subtext to these affairs. These are people who make their own rules to fit the situation. Colbert was simply behaving in kind. The verdict: Not out of line.

P.S. As I noted in an e-mail the other day, one Colbert gag that particularly resonated with me was that the Secret Service code name for new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was "Snow Job." As it happens, a related thought had been popping up recurringly in my thoughts the past few days: "Tony SNOW? They picked a guy to spin to the press and his name is SNOW? How did this fly right through the radar? What, was there nobody named Hal Totalbullshit available? Darleen Packofselfservinglies wouldn't leave her job flacking for Wells Fargo?"

I still can't get over it.

WE'RE NOT REALLY "IMMIGRANTS," THEY'RE NOT REALLY "IMMIGRANTS"--GOOD GOD, WE HAVE A MATCH

2006-05-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

Has it happened to you?

All your life you've politically been somewhere between Adlai Stevenson and Abbie Hoffman and then one day you begin to notice some leakage in the proud Goodyear blimp of your ideological constancy. You find yourself diverging, even lurching, from the path of truth and right, or rather, truth and left. You assume that this is merely a single-issue fluke, and not the beginning of some gradual abandonment of a political belief structure that you no longer find habitable. Then again, maybe this is how it started for the neocons. Are you losing faith?

Or was it just all those Mexican flags waving in the air that struck an otherwise dormant nativist nerve?

Hi there. My name is Bob (hello, Bob) and I'm a liberal who's having trouble with the intractably knotty issue of what is known as illegal immigration or undocumented entry or cultural invasion, depending on where and with whom you find yourself trapped into discussing the topic.

There are a dizzying array of sociological, economic and political aspects to this subject. Most of the major ones have been endlessly argued and rhetorically flogged far beyond my ability or desire to contribute anything: the morality of "rewarding criminality" by allowing border-sneakers, and those who hire them, to go unpunished; the logistical impossibility of actually enforcing the law; the salutary or devastating effect on the economy, and so on.

There is, however, one note in all this contention that seems to strike nobody but me as discordant. It's a phrase that has been invoked so endlessly as to have become a graven truism, but one that is not altogether accurate, and perhaps disingenuous.

"We are a nation of immigrants."

Are we, really?
And in any case, so what?

To begin with, albeit at the risk of gross oversimplification, the United States is a nation of people mostly like me, at least in one sense: I am not an immigrant. I was born here. So were my parents, and their parents, and their parents. Beyond that, I'm genealogically unclear, but the point is that while my residency here is the result of some prior migration by my forebears, my family has been here long enough to render the concept of immigration inapplicable. For most of us, it simply loses all relevance after two or three generations. The US is the result of immigration, but it is not a nation of immigrants.

Unless you're a rigid historical purist, of course--and in that case, the fact is that every nation is a nation of immigrants, with the exception of wherever you believe the human race first originated, whether that be sub-Saharan Africa (evolutionist), the Garden of Eden (creationist), or the spot upon which our alien progenitors from a distant galaxy first deposited our spawn (Tom Cruise). In any case, every other part of the earth was settled by humans migrating from that origin. Residents of the US merely happen to inhabit the last major hunk of real estate to open up in this global human diaspora.

And even if all Americans are "the children of immigrants," what has that fact to do with the subject at hand, which is the tidal wave of humanity that seems to keep flooding onto our shores from the south without benefit of either invitation or permission?

I reject the description of these understandably ambitious people as "illegals," which is as prejudicial and degrading as "illegitimate" was when it was used to refer to those born out of wedlock. Nevertheless, the word "immigration" as we use and understand it implicitly includes the element of some officially sanctioned procedure. The dictionary may define it neutrally, as the mere movement of people from hither to yon to take up residency, but for all practical purposes our definition is far more limited. If you go by Webster's, "immigration" is as much what the Mongols did to China and the Huns did to Europe as it is what legions of Irish and Italians did in crossing the Atlantic a century ago. That's one reason we don't go by Webster's.

I don't mean to even remotely equate the current cross-border phenomenon with the economic ruin and cultural devastation that have historically characterized such hostile mass migrations. But neither does this phenomenon equate with the specific and legally defined process of "immigration." And trying to classify those who reject that process and enter the country illegally as "immigrants" makes no more sense than referring to shoplifters as "customers."

Moreover, the fact that our population has been largely inflated by immigrants is in no way a persuasive argument that this trend be allowed to continue. The one nation on earth that most thoroughly embodies the "nation of immigrants" concept--Israel--also happens to be the strongest and most convincing argument against open borders and the unrestricted flow of foreign nationals across them.

THERE'S A WEAPON OF ASS DESTRUCTION IN MY PANTS

2006-04-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

The following item is now several weeks old, but can still, I believe, be instructive to those who are drawn to political theater. Take heed.

"Athens, Ohio (AP) — Ohio University will reimburse a student for his bicycle, which was destroyed after officials mistakenly believed a sticker with the name of a Florida punk band was a bomb threat. The band's name is "This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb." The sticker on Patrick Hanlin's bike led authorities to shut down four campus buildings. Bomb experts destroyed the bike to find no bomb inside. A university attorney says the replacement cost of the seven-year-old touring bike is between $800 and $1,300.
A charge of inducing panic had been filed against Hanlin, but was later dropped."

This calls forth in the imagination various other possible, if similarly unlikely, band names that might cause difficulties or at least awkward moments for fans who display them on, say, clothing or vehicles or personal items. To wit...

This Backpack Is Loaded With Child Porn
I Just Killed A Priest
This Car Is Stolen
Parole Violator
Death To Law Enforcement Officers Everywhere
Follow Me To Osama Bin Laden
Guess Who's Buried In My Basement?
I Hiked All Over Cambodia And All I Got Was This Lousy Bird Flu
The Grateful Dead

IMBECILITY IS ALSO THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, OR AT LEAST THE AUNT

2006-04-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

The following is an actual, verbatim news item--

"BEERBELLY IS A BIG SUCCESS

The Beerbelly - a secret strap-on beer holder that disguises itself as a bulging beer belly - is being marketed in the US.

It was the brainchild of three middle-aged men who wanted a way of sneaking beer into movies and baseball games.

Within just five days of launching their www.thebeerbelly.com website, they had an incredible two million hits and calls for it to be sold worldwide.

The $35 Beerbelly's harnesses slip over the shoulders and around the waist, under a shirt, leaving onlookers thinking the wearer just spends too much time in the pub.

But little do they know, the wearer doesn't actually need the pub - he, or she, has an 80-ounce plastic bladder full of beer constantly at hand."

Yes indeed, a brilliant concept. Well, unless perhaps you are put off by...

The idea of sitting in a ballpark with an ice-cold stomach. Or the notion of your own beer belly growing progressively colder even as your supply of beer grows progressively WARMER. Or trying to figure out exactly how you pour the beer from the gutsack into a cup without looking to others like you're drinking your own pee. Or wondering what the hell you do if the thing springs a leak during, say, the 7th inning stretch.

Other than that, hell yeah, terrific new product. Edison would be consumed with envy.

NOT EVERYBODY'S A COMEDIAN

2006-04-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

I was about 11 years old or thereabouts when The Truism first occurred to me. I accepted The Truism at once as being resoundingly correct. And for the most part, I've never stopped believing its correctness. Here's the Truism:

Pretty much the best thing that a human being can do on earth with his/her life is to make people laugh.

I could go into a long and convoluted defense of that position, but I don't want to do it, and you don't want to read it. (If that is not true, we should both get hobbies as soon as possible.)

In any case, humor has pretty much been the hub of my life, both as an aficionado, fan, and student, and as a practitioner, performer, and purveyor. In other words, I think about it more than the average Joe. A few weeks ago, for no particular goddam reason other than my infatuation with concepts and subjects pertaining to humor, it occurred to me to make a list of THE BEST COMEDIC ACTORS OF ALL TIME.

We will, for logistical purposes, overlook the fact that I have no practical knowledge or record of the quality of comedic actors prior to the silent film era. We are known to be magnanimous that way.

As I am setting these arbitrary thoughts down, there is no particular order. Just as they pop into my mental line of fire.

Adam Sandler: Is mentioned here only because--and to recognize the fact that--he is the absolutely worst thing to happen to the entertainment industry in general and the comedic arts in specific, in my lifetime, or probably the lifetime of anyone since the 14th century, or at least since Torquemada stopped working the clubs. And yes, I'm including Carrot Top. In other words, this is our baseline, below which comedy by definition cannot exist.

Jack Benny: Had, was, and created possibly the best pure comic character of all time, and certainly since the dawn of electronic transmission. Unfortunately, this character did not translate to films even a little tiny bit, and I'm still not sure anyone knows why, but this was the fate of a lot of the great radio comics, Fred Allen and Red Skelton among others. Still, Benny's tightwad, age-ophobic, verbally mincing persona is unmatched in American comic theater.

Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin: I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you can be given serious, and/or fair consideration in the matter of acting if nobody ever heard you speak a line. This is, of course, not strictly true for either of these actors, but on that basis they would actually lose points. I regard them as vaudevillians caught on cinema, rather than actual film actors. The voice is a big deal, too. On this basis, I would include W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and Laurel and Hardy. They barely make the Best list, however, because of the all-important One Note Wonder demerit: they did not truly act in the accepted sense, but played one role which, in some cases, boiled down to being themselves (Fields and Groucho most notably).

W.C. Fields: One Note Wonder stigma notwithstanding, he played a harsh, cynical, dissipated note no other comedic actor has even tried to play, the acerbic yet engaging child- and dog-hater; his films still kick as funny, wry, snide and occasionally brilliant pieces of work.

Laurel & Hardy: Also one-noters, but milestone performers, they--and particularly Stan Laurel--are owed a comedic characterization debt by, among others, the Smothers Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Rowan & Martin, "The Honeymooners," even Martin & Lewis to a degree, all of whom drew upon either Laurel's befuddled innocent or Hardy's self-important bully or both.

Peter Sellers: For my money--a commodity I don't part with easily--probably the single best comedic actor of all time. The three roles in Strangelove plus Clouseau alone cement the honor, to say nothing of Being There and The Mouse That Roared. This just seems so beyond argument that I won't even bother doing the shoveling.

Jerry Lewis: Hard to like the guy, all the billions raised for kids in wheelchairs notwithstanding, but he was the cash money half, and indeed the "comedy" element, of the most successful comedy team of all time. Beyond that, he created a comedic archetype and in fact a franchise with his Nutty Professor, and pulled off a few serious drama roles along the way. Even the French are right sometimes. He was as innovative as he was annoying, and that's saying a lot.

Jackie Gleason: Was nominated for more than one Oscar, as I recall; was absolutely absorbing in The Hustler; and actually showed more range just in his TV hour--Kramden, Poor Soul, Reggie Van Gleason, Bartender guy, couple others--than most comics produce in their entire careers. Main drawback: Other than Kramden, he was superficial and unconvincing in all of them.

Art Carney: Now we're talking. Only three substantial movie roles I can think of, but one of them got him the Best Actor Oscar. And that was mere icing on the cake of having created one of the alltime primo comic characters, Ed Norton (later ripped as/by Yogi Bear, Barney Rubble, even Cosmo Kramer [the flinch as dialog]). A true comic acting genius, if such is thinkable. Certainly walks away with the Least Recognized award.

Woody Allen: He is perhaps what Chaplin would have been if Chaplin had been born when Woody was, in terms of creating and having total control over his screen persona, and using that leverage to portray an underdog on the make with widely divergent degrees of success. He is always Woody, true, just as Bob Hope was always Hope, but his screen persona established a comedy type that others would subsequently pursue, none of them successfully.

Lucille Ball: A comedy icon, or perhaps iconess, but it somehow never worked for me. The scatterbrain was a terrific comic character, and it was great acting in the sense that Lucille Ball, as opposed to Lucy Ricardo, was actually as shrewd and sharp as a straight razor, but theatrically it was all she had.

Judy Holliday: See Lucille Ball. Holliday's ditzo was much more finely crafted and nuanced than Lucy R., but if she ever played another role, I haven't seen it. Also, she owes a lot to Gracie Allen

Mary Tyler Moore: She had real comic talent, and Ordinary People proved she could act the hell out of a part, but in both of her sitcoms she was basically the straight man to Van Dyke and to most of the MTM Show repertory cast. Still, could be the best of the comedic actresses.

Jack Lemmon: I've never seen anybody cover the drama-to-farce range better, across the board, from China Syndrome and Save The Tiger (it was a drama, he did win Best Actor) to Mr. Roberts and The Odd Couple and Some Like It Hot. The Apartment was probably the best pure dramatic-and-comedic role of that era. I'd rank him second only to Sellers.

Walter Matthau: I'm sorry. Wish I could rank him. Just can't, though. As a comic actor he was always Mr. Irascible; as a dramatic actor he was always mediocre. Wonderful man, sure, but just doesn't belong in this particular pantheon.

Steve Martin: He's done mostly crap lately, and if you ask me--a singularly unlikely occurrence--trying to fill Sellers' gigantic Clouseau shoes was the kind of advice I would shoot my manager / agent for, but I think it's fair to say that The Jerk and Roxanne and The Two Of Us and a couple of other efforts--hey, Trains Planes, right?--easily qualify the comedy polymath of our generation.

Whoopi Goldberg: Yeah, I know, she's always kind of rubbed me the wrong way, too. Nonetheless, she won her theatrical and comedic spurs doing a variety of characters and, although they tended toward the cliche, she did them proficiently. Plus there's that Best Supporting Actress Oscar. All in all, you'd have to rank her in the top several, comedic-actress-wise.

Bob Hope: The unctuous, sleazy, wolf-without-teeth persona that he buffed to a fine sheen in every entertainment medium extant in his lifetime--stage, radio, film, TV--so dilutes with its ubiquity the possible genius of its construction that it cannot be considered for Comedic Actor Greatness at this time. In short: Ixnay, inoseSkay. This has been a recorded message.

Alan Alda: Yes, MASH was a major long-running TV hit and an American cultural phenomenon. Yes, Paper Lion was a pleasant, even engaging movie. And yes, he looked like he might have carried upwards of 25 states in The West Wing. But no, he is not a notable comedic/acting talent. Sorry.

Jonathan Winters, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor: And others I could name. Absolutely brilliant, in some cases nearly beyond description, on stage in a standup comedy context and performance, but when it came to anything resembling serious acting? All ashore. Perhaps the most dispiriting case in point: Winters, who was at least groundbreaking and at best unapproachably brilliant in his ability to conjure up comedic characters during standup performances, but somehow retreated into a kind of sparkless neutrality when it came to films and TV roles.

Robin Williams: As nice a guy as you could give so much raw talent to, and a bona fide dramatic Oscar recipient, but the fact is that other than (and maybe even including) Good Morning Vietnam, his quality acting performances--Good Will Hunting, The Bird Cage, Dead Poets Society--weren't comedies, or comedic in nature. In fact, his comedy films have for the most part ranged from disappointing to ghastly, on the amusement scale.

Phil Silvers: A real sleeper, especially to anyone born after, say, 1955, but his Sergeant Bilko was one of the timeless gems of comic characterization, even if it was a familiar posture for him, which won him three Emmys to go with the--you could look it up--two Tonys that he won for Broadway portrayals in Top Banana and A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way To The Forum. In terms of peer recognition, audience approval (ratings), and range, maybe the actual best comedic actor, American wing, mid-20th century category.

Sid Caesar: But this is my boy, my personal vote-getter. True, he was forgettable at best in the only feature film I know him to have been in--MadMadMadMadWorld--but in Your Show of Shows he never played any recurring characters, would tackle almost any parody role, probably had no real peer in the Facial Expressions category, and his work holds up very well today.

Imogene Coca: I never saw a single episode of Grendl, her Hazel knockoff sitcom, but it was gone soon enough that it's hard to consider it a major plus. She was really quite good in a broad range of characters playing off Caesar, but Sid simply engulfed the stage, and it was like reading Shakespeare next to an erupting volcano; you could be Gielgud and nobody would notice you.

Good God, look how I've gone on, here. This has surely become hugely tedious to any poor soul who's happened across it. On the upside, however, nothing about Dom DeLouise, Pee Wee Herman, or Chevy Chase.
More to come? Eh, who knows.

MUSIC YOU CAN REALLY GET INTO

2006-03-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

Here, verbatim, is the ad copy from the website for "iBuzz--the Music Activated iPod sex toy":

iBuzz -- The music-activated orgasm machine!

Works with any MP3 player or portable music device!
* Bullet vibrates in time to your music!
* Turn the music up for stronger vibrations!
* Stimulating fun for him and her!
* Easy to use - plug in and play!
* Works with or without music!

Only £29.99! Now available in the US!

iBuzz is the musical orgasm machine! The music-activated vibrating bullet stimulates you in time with your favourite music. Which song pushes your butttons?

iBuzz -- It plugs into any music player to let you enjoy your music like never before!

That pretty much says it all. For what it's worth, I've had particularly satisfying results with "Jumping Jack Flash," "Bye Bye Love," "The Flight of the Bumblebee," and, somewhat counterintuitively, "Onward Christian Soldiers."

Bop 'til you drop.

EXCESS BLOGGAGE

2006-03-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

A few select recent tidbits from my dayjob Cultural Oddities Hunter-Gatherer gig, with apologies to my readership, which is every bit as loyal as it is imaginary, for not having come up with any genuinely amusing or interesting ideas lately which I felt I had no chance of selling for real money elsewhere.

ALSO DOING A HECK OF A JOB
While the Treasury Department estimates that cyber crime now nets more than the illegal drug trade--$105 billion per year--and over 55 million Americans were exposed to potential identity theft by computer security breaches in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security cut its spending on cybersecurity research by $16 million, or 7 percent, from 2004 to 2005.

BRAND X-CESS
The lyrics of over 1/3 of the 106 rap songs that made Billboard's Top 20 in 2005 included some mention of a brand name product, with the 10 most-often-mentioned being Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Cadillac, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Hennessy, Chevrolet, Louis Vuitton, Cristal and AK-47. Beretta. incidentally, was 13th. (Among rap artists, 50 Cent led the brand-dropping with 17 products mentioned in 7 songs. Maybe time to change your nom de career to Won Buck, bro.)

SUPREME IRONY
A study of transcripts of the U. S. Supreme Court's 2004-05 term shows that Justice Scalia produced 77 "laughing episodes," noted in the transcript as [laughter], while Justice Breyer produced laughter 45 times, Justice Ginsburg 4 times, and Justice Clarence Thomas not at all.

CRACK HO HO HO
The number of bags of crack, somehow overlooked by the CSI team, that were found by a Camden, New Jersey jury during a murder trial when jurors inspected the victim's bloody coat : 30.

SURCHARGE
According to research by the Tax Foundation, U.S. taxpayers spend 22 cents trying to comply with federal tax codes for every $1.00 that the IRS takes in.

BUTT HOLY

2006-03-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't you know it? Within 48 hours of my silly little blog posting about those things upon which the image of Jesus had not yet been reportedly seen, I run across the website of an entrepreneur by the e-commerce name of Divine Interventions, being a purveyor of sex toys, adult novelties, marital aids, choose your favorite euphemism for synthetically produced items that you thrust into yourself and/or your partner for erotic pleasure. And on that site I encounter a dismaying reality.

Some background: On my most recent blog entry, I listed, as a public service to those wishing to claim to have seen the face of Jesus on something or other, a number of items and objects that were still up for grabs, look-it's-the-spitting-image-of-Our-Lord-wise. Things that absolutely nobody had yet reported having seen the mug of the Nazarene adorning. And on my list was, of course, "butt plug." Bless me, I thought that was a pretty safe assumption.

But two days later, as I say, I had occasion to run across the Divine Interventions site. We won't waste time on such irrelevencies as why or how I happened to visit the DI dotcom. The point is, DI specializes in, not to put to fine a point on it, sacred-religious-figure dildos, items of salacious insertion fashioned in the image of sacred personages. There was a Buddha dildo, and a Virgin Mary dildo, and some other dildi, and then there was what, based on their graphics, was apparently their centerpiece item, perhaps even their corporate totem: the Baby Jesus Butt Plug. I'm just going to give you a minute or two to embrace that imagery.

Okay, it's true that I was referring, in my previous post list, to items that the visage of the adult Jesus had been perceived upon, and not novelty products that were basically tiny, pliable, obscene versions of the infant Messiah's entire head and shoulders. Still and all, as one of America's leading imaginary journalists, I've got to post the disclaimer: In the strictest satirical sense, there now has been "a butt plug with what looks to be the face of Jesus on it." Whew, thanks; I needed to get that off my chest. I feel cleaner already. Or maybe that's just the medication.

"I DON'T WANTA TALK, TALK ABOUT JESUS, I JUST WANTA SEE HIS FACE."--THE ROLLING STONES, EXILE ON MAIN STREET, 1972

2006-02-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

According to the news, the face of Jesus, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof--reasonable to the certifiably faithful, anyway--has now popped up in the form of an oil stain on a piece of sheet metal that was found by one Thomas Haley, a good, God-fearing Christian in Connecticut, who was so seized by the spirituality of the phenomenon that it took him over 30 minutes to decide to put the blessed metal up for sale on eBay. Which it now is.

But the failure of religious devotion to withstand the sheer moral force of a tidy profit is not our premise today. We're not nearly that thoughtful, lofty, or clever. Today's setup is, rather, the number of assorted and often unlikely objects and items upon which the visage of Our Lord The Redeemer has appeared. I haven't had the foresight to start keeping an ongoing log of these quirky news items, and I increasingly wish I had. Although, in all probability, you could find a thoroughly comprehensive list at some web address on the order of Shitthatjesus'sfacehasappearedon.com (or maybe .org, which would make it easier to hustle grant money). But I do specifically recall claims of Jesus's depiction on a number of baked goods, including at least one tortilla, as well as the window of a skyscraper somewhere, and more than one tree. (Although, to be painfully honest, I may be lumping likenesses of the Virgin Mary in there.)

In any case, the point I wish to raise today is that as a Lutheran born and reared, it is my belief that Jesus, if he is Lord at all, is Lord to all. Which means that each and every one of us, from the grandest to the least, should be able to expect that the King of Kings will be made manifest to him or her at some time in some medium. And it occurs to me that, given the rate that images of Jesus have been popping up of late, we could soon find ourselves totally out of stuff that the Nazarene has not yet appeared on. What I'm saying is that if you believe, I mean really believe, you had better stake your claim to some Jesus-apparition-venue right now, before they're all gone. Accordingly, as part of my endless and self-sacrificial crusade to bring goodness and enlightenment to all, I humbly offer a few items which you could officially lay claim to be the first person upon which to have viewed the incarnation of the Son of God.

A manhole cover.
An Eskimo Pie.
The Goodyear blimp.
A kitty litter box.
A satellite dish.
A Twinkie.
A Delco battery.
A shotgun shell.
A mosque.
A horse.
A horse pie.
A baseball card.
The Saint Louis Arch.
Jennifer Lopez's ass.
The Indianapolis 500 pace car.
The cover of Playboy.
The Afflack duck.
A toilet seat.
MapQuest.
A freshly removed appendix.
Richard Simmons.
A catcher's mitt.
A Thighmaster.
The carpeting under a Thighmaster.
Gorbachov's forehead.
A condom.
A pawn ticket.
A butt plug.

There you go. Whoever you are, I'm sure there's one that will work very nicely for you. Enjoy your 15 minutes of media visibility. Via con Dios.

GIMME A BROKE

2006-02-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not even going to try to contrive a clever premise for the following. I blame it on Chronicle columnist Leah Garchik, who asked readers to submit satirical takeoffs on the Brokeback Mountain scenario. Throw me a setup like that, and I am simply too morally weak to resist. The result is not so much wit as gag-line calisthenics. See for yourself:

Two people fall in love while mailing in rebate coupons in Buckback Mountain.

A pair of feuding drama critics nonetheless become mutually enamored in Brickbat Mountain.

Two Victorian romance writers become entangled in a hopelessly doomed affair in Bleakbook Mountain.

A couple of injured woodpeckers get it on in the vet's waiting room in Brokebeak Mountain.

Michael Jackson suddenly finds himself so financially destitute that he must take up with men his own age in Brokeblack Mountain.

Two lovers engage in a marathon bout of passion in a tanning salon with painful results in Bakedback Mountin.

There, I think I've gotten it out of my system.

SIRHAN SIRHAN HAS MOVED TO WALLA WALLA

2006-02-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

As an update on my recent comments to the effect that it's hard to take seriously an allegedly strict fundamentalist Islamic group whose name is just a shade (indeed, just an s) short of being HamAss, I offer the name of the Afghani Taliban commander who issued a fatwa against Danish cartoonists who had drawn depictions of Mohammed, and who offered a bounty of 100 kilos of gold to anyone who assassinated said cartoonist(s): Mullah Dadullah. Really. So help me. Once again, life imitates Sesame Street, or perhaps Shel Silverstein.

Meanwhile, in an effort to nail down the gold medal in the Preposterous Bureaucratic Nomenclature event for the US, we learn that the Department of Homeland Security has undertaken a massive data sweep of the entire Internet, blogs and e-mail included, for suspicious entries or activities, and that the official name of this covert program is Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement, or in acronymic terms, ADVISE. Again, absolutely true. It's painfully forced and clumsy, of course, but then, SPECTRE and UNCLE were already taken.

LAST MAN STANDING

2006-02-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

I know there are many far more important issues on people's minds today, such as Iran's headlong rush to pitch the earth into global nuclear hell, and whether Humuhumunakalakawapalama, or whatever the hell his name is, will be able to start on defense for the Steelers, but my mind is still caught like a sweater on a nail on something that struck me during Bush's latest State of Disunion address.

It's the usual question that occurs to all concerned Americans at that time, which is: "I wonder which member of the Cabinet is sitting out the speech somewhere safe in case evildoers take out all in attendance at tonight's truthroast?" That person automatically becomes President of the country or whatever remains of it, and I gather this role has sort of rotated over the years: Defense secretary one year, Treasury topkick the next, then the HUD head, etc.

I used to think that this was a stupid protocol to follow, because in the event of such a sudden and massive disruption of the federal government, and the almost inevitable epidemic of panic and instability nationwide, you would want the guy running Defense to be your hole card, since the national threat level would go right off the color chart, and there would most likely be a need to put troops into action one way or another, either to encourage calm or to contain disorder. My point here is that in such a crisis situation, what the hell good is the Secretary of Commerce or Education or the Interior going to be? What's the Labor Secretary going to do, respond to the terrorists with a sitdown strike?

I still think the choice of the odd man out should be deliberate and prioritized and not random, but I've changed my mind about who it should be. Defense would now be my second choice. My first pick, of course, would be the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Primarily because, if somebody took out the entire leadership of the country in its own most secure haven, it would be very explicitly HIS PROBLEM. Whoever was in charge of preventing exactly such an occurance would have rather a lot to answer for, and personally, I would want to make sure the sonofabitch was still around to face the questions.

But that's just me.

"HAMA HAMA HAMA HAMAS"--RALPH KRAMDON

2006-01-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome one and all to Paranoia Playhouse, where our motto is "What was that noise?" In today's production, we ask our faithful patrons to slip on their triple-layer double-cushioned Depends, because it's time to SHIT A BRICK.

The scenario: Hamas has nailed down either 53 percent (CNN), 64 percent (NBC), or 312,168 percent (Fox News) of the vote in the Palestinian election. Woe betide us. Woe particularly betide Israel, and whatever fragments of the Mideast peace process may still exist.

On the other hand...Bah.

I'd like to seethe with rage and impatience and frustration over what seems to be just one more awful and self-perpetuating turn of events in the eternal death dance of the Semites, but..

1) Neither I nor a number of actual experts think this would be such a terrible thing long-term (see History Of Co-Opting, 2005 edition, Encyclopedia de Bob) if it sucked some or the more unprincipled or fanatic or simply deranged but nevertheless ambitious fringe elements into politics where they belong,

2) It makes things tougher for Bush, and I have gotten to the point where I would condone the barbecuing of kittens if it accomplished that end, and,

3) Is it just me, or isn't there something odd, something off-kilter, something that simply doesn't ring true about a so-called "strict Islamist" group, a "hard-line fundamentalist Muslim" organization, whose name begins with HAM? As in popular pork entree?

Somebody is pulling the western world's leg here. I mean, come on. HAMas? What--was "Allah's Bacon Brigade" already spoken for? I'm sorry, but I simply cannot take a pack of so symbolically ambiguous renegades seriously.

And why have our ever-vigilant Republican overseers been so silent on this angle? Are we to believe that such a glaring ideological self-contradiction could just go blithely unnoticed by the Defense and State Departments and the White House?

Then again, perhaps that's exactly what we should expect from a purportedly anti-porn and pro-abstinence BUSH administration.

Dear God, am I the only one who sees the pattern here?

THE MAGAZINE'S "TALENT FILTER" IS EVIDENTLY WORKING EFFICIENTLY

2006-01-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

Subscribers to or regular readers of The New Yorker are aware that the magazine began running on its back page a new feature 36 weeks ago called the Cartoon Caption Contest, in which readers are invited to go to www.newyorker.com/captioncontest and suggest a caption for that week's cartoon, or vote on the three finalist submissions for a previous cartoon. I know it was 36 weeks ago because this week's cartoon (cover date January 23) is listed on the web page as contest #36.

The problem is that I'm unable to either enter the contest or vote for a caption because when I click on either option, I get a small, blank window that, whatever I then do, remains a small, blank window. Well, unless I attempt to close it, which seems to work just fine. Now and then they run a cartoon for which one or more suitable captions occurs to me. And yet I am prevented from casting these morsels of wit upon the waters of Conde Nast, publishers of The NYer.

But that's why God gave us blogs, isn't it? The basic end-run technology, every man or woman his or her own media, the publishing industry's lock on print communication neatly picked, removed and thrown aside. So, here's where I scratch that itch.

This week's cartoon shows two shirt-and-tie businessmen in conversation, one of them speaking as he holds his stomach, which is enormous, the unmistakable image being that he is not just pregnant but late term, ready to drop.

Here are my suggested captions. I invite anyone out there to suggest their own. Good luck getting through to the web page.

"I figured it was just one last, harmless fling before my sex-change operation."
"I trace it back to the day after Thanksgiving, when my wife got the big half of the wishbone."
"You bet your sweet ass I'm going with a Caesarian."
"If nothing else, it's given me new respect for the pro-choice argument."
"Actually, the morning vomiting thing isn't much worse than my sophomore year at Florida State."
"Never, and I mean never, stiff a witch doctor."
"Fortunately I was able to locate Marlon Brando's old tailor."
"It goes without saying that my HMO just laughed me out the door."
"The corned beef I'm fine with, but the cabbage turns me into a Macy's parade balloon."
"Apparently the Kaiser surgeons, for some reason, stapled my asshole instead of my stomach."

CHURCH PROPERTY: NO TRESPASSING

2006-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

Here's todays item de ridicule, reprinted verbatim from Ananova.com:

"BREWER ANGERS CHURCH WITH JESUS IMAGE
"A Lithuanian brewer has angered the Catholic Church by using an image of Jesus wearing headphones to advertise beer. The Kalnapilis-Tauras company is offering free CDs of Lithuanian 'ethno-hits' with their beer. And to advertise the promotion, they are picturing a wooden sculpture of Jesus wearing headphones over his thorny crown on the label. Archbishop of Kaunas, Sigitas Tamkevicius, said the labels offended believers. He added that the use of Catholic symbols for commercial purposes, particularly for alcoholic drinks, was 'completely unacceptable and unjustifiable.'"

The key sentence here, for purposes of satire, would be the Archbishop's denunciation of the commercial use of Catholic symbols, one of which he evidently reckons to be Jesus of Nazareth. Let us roll up our sleeves with enthusiasm and put a few questions to the esteemed Archbishop, especially since there is not a chance in Hell (a popular and familiar Catholic symbol, evidently) that he will respond.

Q: On what basis does the CC (Catholic Church) criticize the usage of Jesus for purposes of revenue generation when, in point of fact, that very usage has been the basis of the CC's own income, prosperity, financial survival and, indeed, lavish prosperity, over the past 2,000 years?

Q: Since when is Jesus, an historical personage, the symbolic property of the CC? Have the various Protestant denominations been informed of this? Have they been advised by CC attorneys that their invocation of the late Jesus constitutes a usurpation (possibly not an actual word) of an official CC symbol, patent pending?

Q: While we're at it, what about the Cross, which, if Jesus is the symbolic property of the CC, would certainly seem to be likewise, as a sort of liturgical accessory to the Prince of Peace? Is that also under CC copyright, and will angry letters be forthcoming from CC attorneys to goldsmiths and jewelers trafficking therein? If attacked by a vampire, do you need CC authorization to flash the sign of the Cross? What about Crossing guards?

Q: How about that fish symbol so popular in second century Rome and on contemporary motor vehicles? Should the trademark lawyers at Starkist be prepared for an action against Charlie the Tuna?

Q: If I slam my finger with a hammer and yell out "Jesus Christ!", is it simple blasphemy, or a trademark violation?

Q: Does this mean I have to omit the crown of thorns from my favorite S&M outfit or risk an injunction?

As I say, I don't expect any response. And I don't really mean to annoy the good Archbishop. If I truly wanted to ruin his day, I'd make sure someone told him about the Prince of Piece (TM) condoms.

UNFORTUNATELY, BASEBALL DOESN'T INVOLVE THE USE OF A PUCK

2006-01-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

According to an article by St. Petersburg Times staff sportswriter Marc Topkin on January 15, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are considering changing their name, one possible new handle being the Tampa Bay Tarpons, which I personally vote for just because of the marvelous typo potential. Ditto with regard to the opportunity for errant transpositions by the broadcast teams: "And now, taking the field are the Tarpa Bay..." You get the drift.

AND A MERRY COLON, AS WELL

2006-01-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

"Oh me, oh my
The moon is nigh,
Its crimson shadow
On thy thigh..."

Because we do not have the courage to literally pound ten-penny nails into our flesh, my dear wife and I were coming as close to that penance as we care to, which was to watch a few minutes of the People's Choice Awards on TV the other night, something we did because we watch whatever channel is actually able to transmit a visual image to our kitchen portable, and we caught, I believe, both the high and low points of the broadcast all in the space of the time it takes you to assemble a salad.

The low point was that when we turned on the TV, Jessica Simpson, or somebody on that order--I really can't tell the difference between any two entries in the People rolodex--was singing "These Boots Are Made For Walking," which is a pure case of life imitating a Saturday Night Live skit. She made Nancy Sinatra sound like Ella Fitzgerald. My fillings hurt.

The high point was a commercial which followed the song, but which I missed almost all of because I was still in a semi-hypnotic state, but which I did catch enough of at the end to gather that it was for a feminine hygiene product. I do know, because it jerked me to alertness, that it ended with the tag-line slogan, and believe me this is word for word, "Have a Happy Period." Well, now.

"Have a happy period"? What exactly is the message here? I mean, is this a commercial, or a greeting card? Have cramps and bleeding suddenly become somehow festive, a cause for celebration? And if so, what hasn't? "Congratulations on your root canal!" "Enjoy your upcoming parole!" So, why not "Have Yourself a Wonderful Little Period?" Is the Hallmark company hot on this yet, and if not, why not?

God knows, we celebrate almost any aspect of human existence at the drop of a hat, including the joyous dropping of the hat, so, what the hell...
Have a Happy Period

Or, for the British market:
Have a Bloody Good Time (of the month)

In completely unrelated news...a little girl in Turkey has been diagnosed with bird flu, which she evidently contracted, as she described it, from petting, stroking, hugging and kissing her pet chicken. The good news, fellahs is that apparently, choking is still perfectly safe.

And finally, my legions of fans will be heartened to know that my latest memoir, recounting my personal struggle with urinary incontinence, a battle that drained me in far more ways than the obvious and that I relate as a source of inspiration for others, will be published shortly. Be sure to log onto Borders or Amazon and order your copy of "A Million Little Pisses."

NAMES IN THE NEWS

2006-01-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one to notice that there seems to be a profusion of almost comically ironic names and titles in the news lately? The GOP has been a hotbed of this phenomenon for awhile now, with the leading human obstacle to all things progressive being a guy named DeLay, who was preceded by another Republican of clout whose name seemed as if it had been explicitly designed as a description of the party's doctrinaire hardnose wing: Dick Armey. And now, vying to replace DeLay in the Majority Leadership role, we have a guy whose name is street slang for marijuana--Blunt--and another whose name, no matter how he chooses to pronounce it, comes across as a crude euphamism for male sexual readiness--Boehner--and, should those seem too frivolous, there is the California candidate, one Jerry Lewis. And the less said about the GOP junior Senator from Idaho, Mike Crapo, the better.

Meanwhile, on the cinematic front, we have "Brokeback Mountain," whose verbal resemblence to the phrase "Broke m'back mountin'" seems rather too precious to be purely accidental for a film about sex between two, um, cowpunchers.

In a completely different vein -- Jay Leno in his monologue last night noted that Jack Abramoff and Monica Lewinsky both went to Beverly Hills High School, an absolutely delightful coincidence, if indeed it was purely coincidental. Then again, maybe they both took the same Social Studies class. In any case, they seem to have learned the same life lesson: that the way to gain leverage or points with men in positions of power is to slip them an irresistible something extra under the table. Leno's line, or at least that of one of his writers, was that the difference between the two was that Jack only wanted the president's ear. Which is a nice punchline, but I would have added that Monica only smeared a dress, not an entire political party.

MY EXTRA BAGGAGE, VOLUME, I DON'T KNOW, 5 OR 6 I GUESS, AS IF IT MATTERS

2006-01-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

For the possible amusement of anybody who happens to stumble upon this blog, here are three items that I, perhaps in similar fashion, recently stumbled upon while negotiating the Net.

First, this news, taken verbatim, from http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-bad03.html --

"INDIANAPOLIS -- State transportation officials are considering a 'bad driver surcharge' that would fine drivers who cause accidents that lead to traffic jams. The fee is meant to reduce the number of traffic-snarling crashes on Indiana's most congested highways and roads, the Indianapolis Star reported. 'If you have a driver that's causing problems, that takes use of the roads away from others,' said Thomas Sharp, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation. 'The whole purpose is to keep traffic moving.'''

Imagine: inflicting actual punishment on motorists whose slipshod, inattentive, pushy or bonehead driving causes others to be imprisoned in traffic jams. I don't know who came up with this concept in Indianapolis, but if anybody wants to circulate a petition to bring them west to run California, I'd sign.

Frankly, I would love to see such vehicular assholes sued by every other single driver who was, thanks to them, frozen in gridlock, who was made late for work or an appointment or who simply needed to get to a restroom. I can't remember which standup comic used to do a take on this with the tagline that, after crawling along for 40 minutes to cover 3 miles, when you finally got to the accident site your attitude was that by God, somebody had BETTER be freaking dead. I won't go quite that far. But nailing them with a harried commuters' class action suit for inconvenience-related damages? You bet.

I'm more ambivalent about punishing potential suicides, specifically those whose threats to jump from freeway overpasses, major bridges and the like wind up shutting down high-density thoroughfares. On the one hand, my heart goes out to someone with so little regard for their life. On the other hand, hey, you want a reason to kill yourself, you inconsiderate bastard? My lawyer will make sure that you get one. Decisions, decisions, philosophically speaking.

Meanwhile, at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527891/posts
we read that, with the opening of its latest penal facility in Crawfordville, the state of Florida now has 3 faith-based prisons. Three, I say. According to this item, the Florida state prison system puts a lot of stock in faith, its power to reform and remake and so on. Nevertheless, I notice that they still have armed guards, high walls and razor wire. Faith clearly has its limits. Plus, evidently, those doing long stretches of years in confinement are expected to have more of it than those blessed with freedom and prosperity. Go figure.

And finally, for those parents of teenage sons who find it next to impossible to get them conscious, dressed and at the breakfast table each morning, there is a company that is promoting such provocative breakfast cereals as "Cheery HOs," "Internet Porn Flakes," and, for the gay youth, "Great Nuts." That should make Junior rise and shine. The entire product line is viewable at http://www.mainstreetsonoma.com/cereals.html

HELL, CALL IT THE RICHMOND FLU...WHAT HAVE THEY GOT TO LOSE?

2006-01-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

According to a recent CNEWS report, the World Health Organization is taking great pains to avoid stigmatizing any particular countries or locales when naming the threatening--and if the echolalia of the media means anything, the inevitable--epidemic of bird flu. Specifically, WHO feel that it's important to shun such appellations as the Spanish Flu (not to be confused with an aphrodisiac that makes your nose run) or Asian Flu, fearing that it could unfairly taint the image and reputation of those geographical entities, possibly with negative economic consequences. In response to which notion, the thought occurs: Yeah, we've seen how that Typhoid label forced the Catholic Church to pretty much eliminate references to Mary from the liturgy altogether.

THE RED MENACE

2005-12-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Next year when Christmas rolls around and you prepare for such annual rituals as setting out milk and cookies for Santa Claus, or taking your child to the local mall to sit on his lap, bear in mind some of the things that the jolly old elf, in full Claus costume, did this year in the run-up to Christmas:

Santa stuck up a Wachovia Bank in Arlington, Texas, on December 20;

Santa was busted for disorderly conduct for dropping his pants in front of groups of teenagers and other shoppers on multiple occasions in the mall at Rockham Park in Salem, New Hampshire on December 7;

Santa--actually, forty blind drunk Santas--ran amok in Aukland, New Zealand on December 17, rampaging through the center of town, looting shops and stores and assaulting security guards;

Santa robbed a furniture store at gunpoint in Ludsigshaven, Germany on December 17, locked two women in the office safe and, placing a finger alongside his nose, got away;

Santa, half naked and more than half drunk, disrupted a Christmas market in Dabringhausen, Germany on December 10;

Santa used a phony machine gun to stage four bank robberies before being trapped by police in a ditch in Tubingen, Germany in mid-December;

Around the same time, Santa set fire to a Swedish town's annual construction of a huge straw ram by firing burning arrows into it;

Santa was meanwhile being sought by British police for repeatedly exposing himself to women and in and around Swanage, Dorset;

In London, Santa grew annoyed with a group of children waiting to see him at a mall, swore at them, pretended to shoot them with his finger, and reduced them to tears;

But it all finally caught up with Santa, who collapsed in front of 750 elementary school children at a Christmas assembly in Hubbard, Ohio and was taken off in an ambulance in critical condition.

So to one and all--
A Merry Christmas
A Happy Hanukkah
A Rollicking Ramadan
A Swinging Solstice
A Fabulous Festival of Lights
And God bless us one and all.

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY FROM RICHARD PRYOR'S DAY AND I'M NOT SURE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

2005-12-16T20:52:00.000-08:00

I just walked away from the television set, where I had seen the two most influential, maybe even powerful (these are frequently two markedly different concepts) personalities in the high-media trade today, and that would be Jon Stewart and Howard Stern. I'm not sure (1) what to make of that, or (2) if there is anything there of which to make. I do know that a stupefyingly high percentage of people in America, the last time pollsters asked the question, said that they get the brunt of their political news and commentary from "The Daily Show," Stewart being the host and defining persona thereof. Something like 20 percent of the 18-32 demo, enough to curl your hair.

And as for Stern, he is, to my vague but pretty confident knowledge, second only to Limbaugh in national radio market penetration and total ear numbers. But the reality is that, while Limbaugh has dittoheads, and other radio celebs have their followings, only Howard truly has fanatic devotees, acolytes, disciples, not to mention certifiable outpatients, in his loyalist army. These people do things, purely because they feel it might please His Howardship, that you would not do except to free your daughter from kidnappers. This is, quite simply, why Sirius is paying Howard fifty million fucking dollars to leave the bounds of earth for satellite radio, and not paying Rush a plug nickel. Nobody streaks a funeral for Rush.

Speaking of Howard Stern, I'm having trouble deciding what the future holds for smut, not that I consider the two subjects synonymous. I leave that to the cultural anthropologists, and Dr. Laura (long ago known to L.A. hotcha DJ Bill Ballance as "Nurse Laura", but I digress). I realize that "schizophrenia" has nothing to do with dual personalities or pathological ambivalence, but it does seem that America is downright schizo in its attitude toward sex, having created a"sex" industry--porn, prostitution, enhancements, paraphernalia, etc.--which is matched for pure profitability only by its "virtue" industry--televanagelists, brimstone Christian flagwavers, cultural purity lobbies, etc.

Meanwhile, to get back to the point--and I actually had one--I would ask the pragmatists in the GOP (and I saw them just the other day, sharing a cab) how they can watch tamely while their party's censorship clique, hydrophobic with its grip on power (legislative, executive, judicial, hat trick!), attempts to outlaw commercialized sex, thus eliminating from the national capitalist revenue stream something north of 2 billion dollars per annum, thereby causing some noticeable nosebleeds in America's corner offices. We're all swimming in the same Great Financial Ocean, and a drain in one area is a drain in all. Are you really willing to bet your political career on a fundamentalist political pipe dream?

Outlaw the entire "illicit" or "offensive" sex trade in the USA? Yeah, that would work. Better you should just outlaw some marginal industry, like, say, supermarkets. Believe me, Wall Street is considerably more energized these days by the likes of Victoria's Secret than by Albertson's.

By the way, let me wish the entire world, and especially those who are offended by the phrase, the very most HAPPY HOLIDAYS. I've been scrawling this exact phrase on Christmas (or as we say in the satanic set, Xmas) cards for years, as shorthand for Merry Christmas (holiday #1) and Happy New Year (holiday #2), and that was before we'd tried to come to terms with the various spellings of Cccchanucchha, or ever even heard of Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and Festivus. For me, it's just this simple: Both sides of this issue have a point, but neither of them are even remotely worth inflicting on the multitudes who are just trying to brighten up yet another goddam cold and grey winter with some shlock, mythology and deficit spending. To them, this lyric:

Hark, the herald angels say,
Just shut up and go away.

REALITY BYTES

2005-12-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Being a random assemblage of a few curious items that I have stumbled over in the media, all of which are, to the best of my knowledge, and in some cases indisputably, true.

STOL MATES
According to a study conducted for Stolichnaya by smell and taste expert Dr. Allen Hirsch, flavored-vodka drinkers have distinct and identifiable personalities which vary by and correspond to their preferred flavor. For example:
Vanilla -- prone to grudges, crave attention;
Orange -- good for laughs, not easily flustered;
Cranberry -- critical black-and-white thinkers;
Peach -- easily bored, crave gratification.
If I were more of a snide wise-ass (and I am), I would probably add:
Simple, unflavored vodka -- heterosexual.

AMONG THE ACTUAL, SO-HELP-ME, SAFE SEX TIPS OFFERED IN THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH GUIDE DISTRIBUTED BY NEW ZEALAND’S GOVERNMENT TO THAT COUNTRY'S LEGAL BROTHELS
Disinfect sex toys after usage. Always have condoms in a wide range of shapes and sizes on hand. Beds should provide enough back support to prevent injury or discomfort while performing various services. Be on guard against injuries caused by rapid repetitive actions or sudden forceful motions. Carry a small flashlight to inspect for sexually transmitted diseases.

GETTING AHEAD IN BUSINESS, PART I
Forget one-minute management and the habits of successful people. Sexologist Neonilla Samukhina, founder of the St. Petersburg Soitology Institute, has written an office strategy book for the literally up-and-coming, Kamasutra In The Office, whose thesis is that what the white collar worker really needs is more sex on the job. Samukhina discusses the copulative possibilities of such popular cubicle culture trysting places as the elevator, the copy machine, and the boss's desk, among others, with explicit photographic illustrations, which is a good thing, since the book is in Russian. Soitology, by the way, is the study of coupling. Where's a translator when you need one?
(While we're on the subject of licentious lit, Mathematics and Sex by Clio Cresswell employs math equations to produce answers to such questions as "How many people do I have to sleep with before I find the perfect partner?" And you thought you'd never have a reason to use algebra.)

GETTING AHEAD IN BUSINESS, PART II
The "Asshole Quotient" is a 100-point scale developed by former IBM exec Ed Rychkun to measure one's ability to hold high corporate or political office, which in either case requires that a leader must "be an asshole in order to succeed." For example, thinking your co-workers are assholes is worth an A.Q. of 10, whereas telling them they're assholes rates a 60. I would dismiss this as simple blather if not for the fact that Rychkun scores both George Bush and Donald Trump as perfect 100s.

WHY THE SUN BARELY RISES ON THE EMPIRE
According to a survey conducted by the BBC, 6 percent of Britons aged 16 to 24 believe that Gandalf from "Lord of the Rings" led the British Navy to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588.

I AM REMINDED, BUT WILL HAVE NO PART OF REPEATING, A SMARMY OLD JOKE ON THE WORD "FOCUS" WHOSE PUNCH LINE IS "BOF' US?"
In the dreary event that you are somehow contemplating joining a Christian youth group, your faith has been rewarded with Single Focus, a group of exactly that nature, based in Atlanta and some 90 members strong, which for the last four years has held its weekly Bible study meetings at the local Hooters. Sometimes you need a reason to believe.

ODD NUMBERS
According to a national survey, the percentage of American parents who don't believe that their teenage kids have had sex: 84. The percentage of percent of American youth aged 14 to 18 who are sexually active: not quite 50.
The rank of New York among the states in per capita federal spending on anti-terrorism: 35. The rank of Vice President Cheney's home state, Wyoming: 1.

AT LEAST AFTER ARMAGEDDON, THE COCKROACHES WILL HAVE PLENTY TO EAT
To see how long a Twinkie would last in the open air before spoiling, Maine secondary teacher Roger Bennatti put one on top of his classroom blackboard in 1974. When he retired last June, it was still there.

A HELL OF A LONG WAY TO GO TO GET TO SUCH A LAME ASS PUN

2005-11-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson has moved to Bahrain, which has evidently welcomed him with open arms. And before you begin rolling your eyes over just how preposterously gullible and shortsighted they are in Bahrain, recall that Oakland did pretty much the same thing with Al Davis. Perhaps this proves a point.

Jackson has relocated permanently to that lucky Arabian kingdom, and has also announced his conversion to Islam, because, states a press release, the tenets of Islam are "closer to Michael's personal beliefs." I didn't think you could get much closer to Michael's personal beliefs than the Catholic church has managed to do, but I am no religious scholar.

The press release also referred to Michael's wish to live in a country that would allow him his rightful share of "personal liberty," and I think we all know what that is a euphemism for, even if we don't. I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that the affections of both young boys and judges are more easily bought there than in Southern California, as unlikely as that may seem in some Red States.

Still, we're dealing with a Muslim country here. Which means an official ban on alcohol. Which means Michael will have to be very cagey with the Jesus Juice. For one thing, he'll probably want to re-name that beverage in accordance with his new faith. Mohammed Mix, perhaps, or Allah Ale. Those kids from the Wahabi schools will swallow anything if you slap the Prophet's okay on it.

I sympathize with Michael's new homeland, both as an American and as a Christian. Good luck with him, you Sunni Jims. Alas, though, I fear the reality will be that--and here comes the most painful punchline of the year--to paraphrase a song from "My Fair Lady":

The bane of Bahrain
is brother to Jermaine

PLUS WE WON'T HAVE TO STEAL OUR MEDICATION FROM THE PATIENTS ANYMORE

2005-11-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

The big $315 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot was claimed earlier this week by seven employees of Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. Asked what they planned to do with their winnings, they gave differing answers, but all basically were pleased that now, as one of them put it, "We can finally afford a decent health plan."

HEAD CHEESE

2005-11-17T16:53:00.000-08:00

PART NUMBER ONE: WHAT A PISSER

When Japanese lavatory engineers, clearly thinking outside the stall, came up several years ago with a talking toilet which admonishes males to raise and lower the seat and to mind their aim, I thought we had reached the height of annoying restroomal intrusion. Just what the world needs, I mused: a toilet that gives US shit. But then, more recently, I chanced upon the Wizmark "interactive urinal communicator," an electronic, motion-activated urinal drain cover that, when you stand in to take a leak, automatically lights up, begins displaying a series of visual stills, and delivers a spoken message. To be specific, a spoken advertising message.

Yes, the unthinkably inevitable has finally come to pass. The bastards are now running commercials in urinals. And why not? God knows there is no more captive audience than a male in mid-stream. As irritatingly invasive as this concept is, however, it's hard to work up a serious outrage over it. First, because you have to pity any advertiser who thinks that associating its product with the act of pissing into a public receptacle will be a net plus. And second, we can at last satisfy that long-held desire to literally piss on a commercial without shorting out our TV.

PART NUMBER TWO: FLUSHING WITH SHAME

While we’re on the topic of subject commode association, say hello to the Sound Princess, a device consisting of a sensor in a public restroom stall which, when you hold your hand over it, triggers the sound of water flowing quite loudly. It is designed to be used to mask the embarrassing sound of the body's emissions during defecation, and is marketed to schools, shopping centers and white collar workplaces in Japan, where the act of elimination is evidently a far more engrossing and challenging phenomenon, and where the Sound Princess has already sold over half a million units.

The manufacturers see enormous possibilities for their product in the USA, but before you send in your application for a distributorship, consider three drawbacks. First, unlike Japan, in America we are as likely to take pride in our window-rattlers as we are to be mortified. Second, the Sound Princess does nothing about the telltale and even more offensive aromas that result. And third, the flowing water just replaces one dead-giveaway noise with another. "Ralph must have had burritos for lunch again, the goddam executive washroom sounds like Niagara Falls."

PARADISE LOST

2005-11-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

According to news reports regarding the terrorist hotel bombings in Jordan, one of the suicide teams consisted of a husband and wife. The al Qaeda internet posting that claimed responsibility implied that this was a wifely expression of loyalty and devotion to hubby and to Islam and jihad, jada jada. I think we all see through this tissue of bullshit. The truth is, Mrs. Achmed considered the proposition of Mr. Achmed going off to terrorist heaven as a holy martyr all by himself, considered how much he could be trusted amid 72 virgins, and said the Arabac equivalent of "No freaking way." This strikes me as a grievous waste of 72 perfectly good virgins, and a stupid, hateful, pointless death made, if possible, even worse. What the hell ever happened to the time-honored "til death do us part" principle?

In related news, it turns out that the bombing took the life of the guy who produced all the "Halloween" movies, which probably leaves a lot of us with mixed feelings. For my part, I'd just like to know where these vile little suicide bombers are when Adam Sandler is hanging out in a hotel lobby.

KATHY LEE MEETS EDWARD TEACH

2005-11-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

AP--Miami--11/7/05 -- The Seabourn Spirit, a luxury cruise ship operated by a subsidiary line of the Carnival Corp., was attacked by a gang of pirates about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia today...

SURVIVORS OF PIRATE RAID RECOUNT EXPERIENCES

Passenger Becca Hempel, Scottsdale, Arizona: "It was terrible, the way the pirates swept over the aft deck and into the dining room. It was just before lunch, and they simply poured in and just...took over! A horrible man with tattoos on his face, on his face! just reached out and grabbed the crab cakes right off mother's plate! And there was this one huge pirate, with these horrible long dreadlocks and a hook on one hand who kept stamping his feet and bellowing, "You call this a buffet? Aaarrhh!"

Lounge Steward Bahkti Chimmichacorn, Ceylon: "My first thought was 'Vishnu, take me, it's another bloody training exercise, like the iceberg alert! The brass at Carnival is always pulling these little fake surprise emergencies. But then I realized the boys at corporate would never spring for the money for all that costuming. Also, there was the damage from the rocket propelled grenades. And of course, when they tied the activities director in chain and threw him over the side."

Amos "Peg Leg" Mursali: "The recreation facilities weren't at all what I was hoping for. I think that put a number of us out of sorts, for one thing. I personally felt that the rock climbing wall was, for me, rather a slap in the face. You can see why we lost our tempers. Although I do regret the impalings. In any event, Carnival has certainly seen the last of my business."

SMAERD

2005-11-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

As a rule, or at least as it happens so far, I do not do postings of a personal nature, by which I mean I don't write about me or things that happen to me, my theory being, in a nutshell: Who the hell cares? But this entry has to do with a dream that I had last night. I'm not sure I could precisely categorize it as a dream, because it was rather too...I don't know...organized to be a dream. Too calculated. Scripted, even. And it was a concept dream. Not a narrative or plot driven dream, or some ethereal fantasy or upwelling of hoodoos. The dream was, very precisely and clearly, a series of takes on this concept:

Different scenarios of misfortune befalling dyslexics who mistakenly and tragically misread signs or instructions.

I have no idea why such a theme should occur to my unconscious. Certainly it would never occur to my conscious.

The first take, as I recall, was something like this:

Dyslexic comes upon a sign reading Golf Course, unwittingly embarks on what turns out to be a kind of gauntlet in a sadomasochistic park: in short, a "flog course."

Mind you, and I'm not kidding, this was not consciously conceived; these are all recalled dream elements, unscripted and certainly unbidden.

Another one was: guy in biological testing lab comes upon a cup in the fridge with a hand printed label on it which he dyslexically reads as "ssip." And does.

Also, a guy goes into a barber shop and says "Take off an inch." It's not true dyslexic rearrangement, but in the dream, "inch" becomes "chin" with all the unpleasant ramifications attendant thereto.

By now the dream structure has abandoned pure dyslexia for a kind of anagramica, and let me say right here that I have never in my life been interested in or possessed of any aptitude for anagrams, but my dreambrain in its sublime imbecility came up with: Old guy suffering dementia walking, like, the grounds of a veterans' hospital, and comes upon some ground cover with a sign reading "Thistles," which his mind reads as Lets shit.

Let me emphasize again and most sincerely: this is not a bit, not concocted, but a straightforward report of a highly uncommon and inexplicable dream experience.

I guess we can both agree at this point that it's time you moved on to Fark.com.

TOOTH YANKER TAKES "CANDY FROM A BABY" CONCEPT TO THE BANK

2005-10-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is an actual Associated Press item from today:

"MENTOR, Ohio What's the worst day of the year for an orthodontist? Dr. Kenneth Lawrence says it's the day after Halloween. Every year on that day he gets phone calls from parents whose children have damaged their braces by eating too much chewy Halloween candy. So Lawrence came up with a plan to cut down on those calls. He offers trick-or-treaters $1 a pound for their goodies. He insists the plan he started five years ago has been very successful. Last year, children turned in more than 80 pounds of candy. As he did last year, Lawrence says he'll send the candy to soldiers serving in Iraq. He suspects much of the candy will then be passed on to Iraqi children."

What a fabulous scam! Have you priced candy lately? The only candy you can get for a dollar a pound would have to be made of tile grout. At eighty pounds per haul, he's raking it in! Figuring Halloween candy costs about $2.50 the pound, that's a net of $120. As an orthodontist, he'd have to work...what...about 9 minutes to earn that much. And sending it to our troops? Oh please. Yeah, it'll be passed on to Iraqi children. Female Iraqi children, average age around 17. "Why do you think they call it a Big Hunk, Mushtari?"

GO SPOOK YOURSELF

2005-10-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Once again, we approach our annual holiday of horrors and, with it, the spooky weirdness that ensues when decent, ordinary citizens are subjected to the chain-rattling of certain grim specters and frightful bogeymen. I refer to those persons so imbued with liberal or conservative sensitivity that they would impose ideological prohibitions on children’s Halloween costume selection, depriving them and the holiday of that special magic: the freedom and power of a child to shock, repel, revolt and offend.

Actual true background: This nonsense began several years ago, when organizations ranging from the left-leaning Iowa City Affirmative Action Advisory Committee to a Costa Mesa evangelical Christian group called Citizens for Excellence in Education, began officially proscribing various Halloween costumes as offensive to particular ethnic, religious, or otherwise definable demographic groups.

And out of this came a new American holiday tradition: Annual reminders from the Halloween police that certain guises are improper, and to be shunned in favor of universally palatable alternatives.

Among those costumes now designated as politically or spiritually incorrect to at least some discernible voting bloc are--and I’m not making this up--Gypsies, Indians, old people, Africans, devils, witches, hobos, the “differently abled”--which pretty much kills that Captain Hook look--and slaves.

Now...this may just be me, but has anybody out there ever heard of any kid who went trick-or-treating as a slave? Is that the look that a kid on the make really wants? Wouldn’t the shackles dramatically limit your mobility and therefore, your total candy haul? Not to mention getting shortchanged on the handouts because, after all, you’re legally only three-fifths of a trick-or-treater?
In any case...among the costumes officially approved for wear--and again, these are their suggestions, not mine--are animals, food, inanimate objects, famous persons, book characters, people of different eras, and “friendly” monsters.

The idea clearly seems to be to avoid any look that might offend or upset any member of a demographic category known as “the currently living.”

Unfortunately, their attempt to impose rules of acceptable Halloween disguise have simply created a Gordian tangle of contradictions and ambiguities that merely complicate the whole costume issue. For example, witches and devils are impermissible because they carry “religious connotations” which may chafe the faith-based sensibilities of those Christians who take umbrage at costumes that depict their beliefs irreverently, or depict other beliefs at all.

But by the same token, this principle would seem to also rule out angel costumes, which might offend not only certain Christians, but also dedicated Satanists--one crowd you particularly don’t want to rile--as well as cowboy costumes, which cruelly confront devout Hindus with images of the barbaric, blasphemous pagans who herd, brand, and even castrate the cattle they hold sacred. In short, just kiss that John Wayne look goodbye, kid.

Then again, it might be worth donning that Junior Psychiatrist getup just to piss off the Scientologists.

On another front, hobo costumes are discouraged, presumably as visual affronts to transients, although you’d think that this particular social gaffe could easily be avoided by simply advising those kids who've chosen the “vagrant” look to skip their usual trick-or-treating at the local hobo jungle down by the river, at least for this year.

Still, it’s a shame to deny kids the very special childhood joy of getting to go out in public wearing clothing so vile and ratty that it makes their mother’s skin crawl--a moment that every child should experience. Perhaps an acceptable compromise might be to substitute for “hobo” some equally plausible characterization, such as “internet geek,” or “Hurricane Katrina refugee,” or “Russian businessman,” or “freelance humor writer.”

The “food” costume concept offers a world of possibilities, but most of them involve rather more sewing and fitting than the average parent cares to contemplate. Moreover, even this seemingly benign category is not without its potential for political or cultural incorrectness. That cunning pork loin getup could carry unfortunate Abu Ghraib connotations for the Muslim family down the block, even as, say, a corn dog costume might inflict genuine dismay on strict vegetarians, and forget the Oscar Meyer outfit altogether. (Then again, strict veggies usually hand out apples as Halloween treats, so why even bother knocking on their doors?)

One could, of course, select from an array of ever-popular vegetable costumes, such as your time-honored rhubarb, eggplant, and Jerusalem artichoke ensembles. But be wary of fruit costumes, which could be negatively misinterpreted in certain gay, Baptist, or military households. And the less said about the banana, the better.

“Friendly” monsters seems rather oxymoronic, if not downright baffling. In an empirical sense, your definitive friendly monster would be somebody like Ted Bundy, but there’s really no such thing as a clearly identifiable “charming serial killer” look The folks who made up this Acceptable Costumes list probably had in mind such harmlessly freakish characters as Uncle Fester Addams or Pauly Shore, but in fact, the cordial-yet-loathsome concept suggests a whole new field of possible costume subjects: tax auditor, telemarketer, airport solicitor, insurance salesman, Karl Rove.

You can see the problem: trying to impose “correctness” standards on Halloween merely creates a host of vexingly difficult choices. For example, must my little nephew give up his beloved Stephen Hawking portrayal because Hawking is “differently abled,” or is he still allowed it under the “famous persons” qualifier?

Come to think of it, does the “famous person” rule permit trick-or-treaters such roles as, say, Rafael Palmiero, Al Sharpton, Osama bin Laden, Tom DeLay, or O.J. Simpson, any of whom might be construed as offensive? And what, dear God, about Paris Hilton?

Is it okay to dress up as a football player, but not a Washington Redskin or Minnesota Viking, lest one offend Native or Scandinavian Americans? Is that little Ninja assassin getup just button cute, or emblematic of gratuitous violence? Does the Ghandi look honor an historic figure, disrespect a religion, or just recycle an old sheet? Does the admonition against “African” costumes also apply to African-American kids?

What we always considered a harmlessly silly children’s masquerade has been revealed as a minefield of potential insensitivities and difficult, soul-searching decisions. The magic is gone, and thanks a lot. I don’t know who makes up groups like the Iowa City Affirmative Action Advisory Committee or Christian Citizens for Excellence in Education, but I do hope somebody soaps their goddam windows, and that their kids then throw them out thereof.

DUTCH TREAT

2005-10-25T16:50:00.000-07:00

At the following website, you will, should you be disposed to pursue this, find an item about how Dutch fertility clinics may have to begin screening out French lesbians, who are flocking to the clinics for insemination in such great numbers that the clinics are running short of sperm. For altogether different reasons, mostly having to do with physical decrepitude, I empathize with the clinics, but that's not the point. The point is that a person with less dignity and taste than myself might use this item as an excuse to make some tacky reference involving the phrase "plugging the dyke" or something on that order. Not me, thank you.
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=48&story_id=24721&name=French+lesbians+'inundating'+Belgian+fertility+clinics

OCTOBER DECLASSIC

2005-10-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Things Guaranteed to Happen During the World Series:

Before at least three games, the ceremonial “first ball” will be thrown out by someone who has approximately as much to do with baseball as crop rotation, and who literally wouldn’t know a hard slider from a marital aid.

In a brief, praise-laden ceremony, an aged Hall of Famer who died during the season will be memorialized with a hagiographic, sentimental tribute despite the fact that his few surviving contemporary colleagues clearly recall him as an arrogant, surly, self-centered, bigoted prick.

Someone will sing the National Anthem so poorly or annoyingly that an indignant American viewing aucience will actually forget about Janet Jackson for almost thirty minutes.

One of the Series' s batting heroes will be a marginal backup player whose hitting so thoroughly sucked during the regular season that he was nearly traded for a whirlpool bath. The player, who hit no more than four home runs during the season, will hit at least one to win a game, which will get him not only laid, but onto the Letterman show.

At least one big-ticket TV commercial broadcast repeatedly during the games will star a player whose widely-favored team, to the surprise of everyone and the dismay of the sponsor, was humiliatingly beaten in the Playoffs.

A hitter whose bat was so hot in September that you could get a tan from it will not only record fewer hits than Yo Yo Ma, but will hereafter be nicknamed “Double Play.”

If the Angels are in the Series, during the telecasts from L.A. the camera will spend more time on TV and film celebrities in the stands that it will on the dugout.

A young pitcher so new to the bigs that he’s still recovering from minor league food will match off against a marquee hurler whose salary would bail out Haiti, and beat him.

At least five post-game interviews with an outstanding player of that game will require the use of interpreters: three Spanish, one Japanese, and one from southern Mississippi.

One night, a slumping veteran outfielder will drink straight bourbons until 4 a.m., at which time he will be found in the hotel lobby trying to place cellphone calls on a cordless razor. The next day, although half paralyzed with a hangover that can actually be heard from three feet away, he will stagger to the plate to pinch hit in the final inning and take a hanging curve into another zip code to win a game.

An otherwise mediocre player will run wild in one game, making several defensive plays of highlight reel caliber and driving in a hatful of runs. He will subsequently test negative for illicit drugs, because the major leagues do not test for veterinary medications.

President Bush will call the winning team's manager and say, “Congratulations, but I wish you were the Rangers.” The manager will think, but not actually reply, “Thank you, Mister President, but I wish you were John Kerry.”

Sports Illustrated’s cover will show a dozen winning team players hugging, high-fiving and champagning one another and singing “We Are Family”.” By next spring, two will be traded away, three more will leave as free agents, and one will be under indictment for domestic abuse.

AIR HEADS

2005-10-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

In today's news, a woman who was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the images of Bush, Cheney, and Condie Rice and the legend "Meet The Fockers" was told by a Southwest Airlines crew that she and her husband would have to leave the plane halfway through their flight from L.A. to Seattle because other passengers, it seems, did not like the message on the t-shirt. Fortunately, the plane was on the ground at the time, having stopped off in Reno enroute. The mind fairly swims at this. First, given the financial condition that Southwest individually and the airline industry collectively are in, they are in no position to turn away anyone. If I were the head of Southwest--and, given the airline's balance sheet, you'd think that I was--you would have to be wearing a garment made of the flesh of orphaned children before I would refuse to take your money. The airline's stated position was to the effect that she was causing a disturbance. My stated position is No, she was wearing a goddam shirt. Right-wing cranks were causing the disturbance, if by "disturbance" you mean insisting that other passengers conform to their ideological dress code. I understand the right-wingers' point of view, of course, but my solution would be to schedule them on special flights. Alas, the scheduled flights I have in mind all took place on 9/11. That is a rather harsh sentiment, I know, but this is America and I have a right to express it. Well, unless I happen to be flying on Southwest Airlines. By the way, I gather that Southwest is owned by and part of US Airways. Yes, US Airways. Metaphor makers, start your engines.

On a different, tangentially related subject, Kurt Vonnegut has another book out, "A Man Without A Country," and while I've only read reviews of it, the book continues Vonnegut's lifelong pattern of writing sentences, phrases, and comments that I dearly wish I had come up with, the latest being his comparison of his experiences soldiering in WWII with the misadventure in Iraq, where he notes that American troops are 'being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas." Hammer, nail, bang.

O TO BE IN ENGLAND

2005-09-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

The following is posted only to satisfy those cranks and carpers who have complained lately that this blog has grown "tame" and "churchy" and "not worth shit compared to my 'Jackass' DVD."

In America, members of various local communities have within the last few years petitioned to change the name of their streets, towns or highways because they had such “offensive” names as FU Road, Gay Court and Route 666. My advice to these troubled souls: For the love of God, don't move to England. According to Rude Britain, a book cataloging double entendre addresses and locales in the UK, you could wind up living on or in Brown Willy, Booty Lane, Nether Wallop, Honeypot Lane, Mudchute, Cockermouth Green, Hooker Road, Cumloden Court, Prickwillow, Upper Dicker, Old Sodom Lane, Long Lover Lane, Dicks Mount, Three Cocks, Balls Cross, The Furry, Lickers Lane, Grope Lane, Menlove Avenue, Titty Ho, Crotch Crescent, Merkins Venue, Pork Lane, Moisty Lane, Wetwang, Swallow Passage, Lickey End, Rimswell, Dick Court, Hole of Horcum, Shitterton, Fingringhoe, Muff, Sandy Balls, or Twatt.

This has been a public service of your US Postal Department.

THE MAXIM FOR TODAY

2005-09-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Whenever a politician says that "This is no time to play the blame game," you can be comfortably certain that, whatever has gone wrong, he or she is to blame.

BANKS FOR NOTHING

2005-09-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

The following is the verbatim, unedited lead to an actual Friday AP news item--

Banks Give Reprieve to Stricken Homeowners
By ALEKSANDRS ROZENS AP Business Writer
NEW YORK -- Sep 02 -- With tens of thousands of homeowners in four states displaced by Hurricane Katrina, some banks and finance companies are allowing customers to forgo monthly mortgage payments for 90 days without incurring late fees or other penalties.

Uh...not to be overly snide about it, but...
Memo to Relevent Banks and Mortgage Companies:
The houses are gone! The former owners are gone! Neither is coming back! Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of numerous valueless acres of debris!

THE SAME THING EVERY OTHER BLOG IS ABOUT TODAY

2005-09-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

KATRINA: THE SNOTTY TAKE

For the first time in his years in office, Bush seems to have run into something that has actually left him visibly rattled, in stark contrast to 9/11, which he quickly grabbed and ran with in a burst of heroic posturing. The problem, I think, is that England doesn't have hurricanes. Or much else in the way of big-ticket natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or tidal waves or swarms of tornados. Which means that Winston Churchill never had to respond to such.

And Bush's role model for national leadership was Churchill, whose biographies he read avidly while prepping for the presidency, and to whom he aspires to be likened by historians. W entered office dreaming of being to the US what Winston was to Britain--a great wartime leader--and as events would have it, the wartime part of that equation proved extremely easy to engineer and realize. Just the other day, Bush explicitly equated our Iraq adventure with World War II, and who cannot appreciate the many similarities between the Wehrmacht and the Sunni roadside bombers.

But Churchill's life and career offered nothing remotely like a template for dealing with a monumental natural disaster. A major American city has deteriorated into a raw, anarchic Baghdad-by-the-Bayou. Alas, this is not a situation where W can simply pick up the phone and sic the greatest military establishment in world history on the problem. This kind of problem requires ingenious and rapid solutions, not simple overwhelming force. Very simply, Bush doesn't know what the hell to do, and, as he has filled his government not with technocrats or managers but with ideologues, he has no one able to tell him.

KATRINA: THE OUTRAGED TAKE

If you go to the official FEMA site, it lists a number of recommended charities to which to send your donations, along with links thereto. First on the list is the Red Cross. Second on the list is Operation Blessing, a fundamentalist organization of alleged charitable purpose run by Pat "Kill Chavez, For Christ's Sake" Robertson. Pat, who will surely characterize the inundation of Nawleans (whose devastated center somebody in the media will equally surely christen "Pond Zero") as divine retribution for the city's tolerance of vice, celebratory excess, occasional nudity, hedonism and homosexuality, has never encountered a human tragedy that he was not ready, willing, and able to exploit for economic gain.

It's just nice to know that amid all the madness and chaos, FEMA hasn't forgotten that its first duty, as a government agency, is to ensure that, whatever the disaster, the administration's brownshirt baptist base gets a good healthy taste of the action.

KATRINA: THE SAPPY TAKE

Instead of the Saints playing their home games at Houston or Dallas or Atlanta or some combination thereof, they could play each of their home games at a different NFL stadium around the country as the home-away-from-home team, or, at least for this season of their travail, as America's Team, in the sense that New Orleans has become America's city. Each "home" game could also be a fundraising event at that facility and in the host city for the survivors and the charities in New Orleans.

Maybe this is just a saccharine concept, but if anyone out there thinks it has merit and cares to pass it on, possibly to someone who might take it further, be my guest.

GOD SAVE US FROM INTELLIGENT DESIGN

2005-08-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Those who are promoting “Intelligent Design” insist over and over that it has nothing to do with religion. “Intelligent Design isn’t just code for God,” they say. “Swear to God, it’s totally different.”
This seems rather unconvincing on the face of it. For one thing, the notion of some infinitely advanced entity that created the universe and everything in it certainly sounds, if not like God, at least Godlike.
But if you take into consideration what we know about “God” on the one hand and what we know about “intelligence” and “designers” on the other, you can soon discern a number of fairly clear distinctions between God and our alleged Intelligent Designer.
Indeed, these differences suggest that those who would campaign against Darwinian evolutionary theory might be better off sticking with a nice, friendly diety. For example

1) The basic conceptual identity of the creator.

God: The ultimate spiritual and theological entity.
I.D.: The ultimate science project geek.

2) Names by which the creator is known.

God: Yahweh, Allah, the Universal Spirit, I AM.
I.D.: Probably some variation of Qligskak994 or Zfornilx-urg or something that human beings can’t even pronounce, but which we would hope translates, in the language of the Intelligent Designer’s race, as “Genius” or “Doc,” and not, say, “Nutso” or “Jarhead” or “Volmar the Sadist.”

3) Expressed in one phrase, the starting point for the creation of the physical universe.

God: “Let there be light.”
I.D.: “Okay, for openers let’s have, like, E equal MC squared.”

4) Probable reason the universe was created.

God: As a living and tangible manifestation of the Everlasting and the Almighty.
I.D.: Hard to say, but best bets are (a) working to qualify for advanced degree in Universe Structuring 100A; (b) showing off to impress members of the Intelligent Designer’s peer group or opposite sex; (c) boredom.

5) How best to envision or describe the creator.

God: The all-powerful, incomprehensible, supernatural master of all there is.
I.D.: Your classic, totally obsessive Sim City freak , but operating on an infinite scale.

6) Death, pain, cancer, earthquakes, mosquitos, termites, impotence, and so forth.

God: In ways that our puny human intellects cannot begin to grasp, these are
vital and integral elements in His/Her great, unfathomable, celestial master plan.
I.D.: Unfortunate design flaws, glitches, oversights, miscalculations, and in the case of pre-menstrual syndrome, the result of Intelligently Designing while hung over.

7) How the creator views the human race.

God: As beloved and cherished children, formed in His/Her own image.
I.D.: Like an ant farm, but occasionally more amusing and with generally less organization.

8) Rules laid down by the creator.

God: Thou shalt not kill, nor steal, nor covet, nor bear false witness, nor blow off the Sabbath, nor dishonor your parents.
I.D.: You only live once; whatever goes up must come down; nothing is forever;
fire burns; it’s always the last place you look.

9) The creator’s long-term plans for humanity.

God: Either eternal bliss in heaven or endless torment in hell, depending on where you wind up on the curve.
I.D.: To observe them until they grow repetitious, tedious, or annoyingly stupid, then hand the universe over to a younger sibling to fool around with and go on to the next hobby.

10) The actual physical appearance of the creator.

God: According to the Bible, pretty much like us, since we were formed in His/Her image, but in a sort of grandfatherly way, like a cross between Father Time and Santa Claus.
I.D.: Could be anything, from a highly developed lizard or squid or praying mantis to a whirling ball of fire and lightning. Depending on how the Independent Design movement progresses, we could soon be seeing “My I.D. Is E.T.” bumperstickers.

11) A few of the creator’s more impressive miracles.

God: Stopping the sun in the sky, parting the Red Sea, turning Lot’s wife into salt.
I.D.: Doesn’t actually perform miracles as such, unless you count children and compound interest.

12) Current status of the creator.

God: Immortal, omnipotent, and eternal.
I.D.: Incredibly medically advanced but, given that s/he began this project some 13 billion years ago, quite possibly dead.

There are probably numerous other conspicuous differences, but this short list is enough to leave me with one definite conclusion. Speaking as a nominal if dormant Lutheran, I’m much more comfortable with a God whose actual existence is widely debated than I am with an Intelligent Designer whose actual existence would, quite frankly, depress the hell out of me.

JOKE ON THIS

2005-08-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

"Humor Me" aficionado and academic cleanup hitter Michael J. Robertson asks, "Are you out of your goddam fucking mind?"

No, wait, that was my Mom. What br'er Robertson was asking was, "What is your version of the 'Aristocrats' joke?"

To those who have not heard of the notorious "Aristocrats" joke, I can only say:
"Jesus, people, get a subscription to Time or Newsweek and peek into the 21st century!"

I'm somewhat surprised that Michael has even heard of my Aristocrats take, given that (1) I haven't performed it since that tragic unpleasantness at the Atascadero Men's Penal Colony gig in 1998, and (2) even discussing it is an act punishable by UN sanctions.

But what the hell, my doctor only gives me another $1,680 to live, so here goes:

Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Princess Diana, Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Smokey the Bear and Flipper walk into a talent agent's office.

"Have we got an act for you!" booms Dr. King. "It'll knock your socks off!"

"Wow," says the agent. "Tell me about it."

"Okay," says Dr. King. "First off, Smokey grabs Mother Theresa and holds her upside down by her ankles, revealing her chaste yet moist femininity. Then Dr. Schweitzer and Princess Di grab Flipper, and holding her high overhead, suddenly plunge..."

Hold on, excuse me. There's someone at the door. Unless it's another moral assault team from the local Committee to Enforce Decency and Good Taste, I'll be right back. Half a mo...

HOWDY, DIDDY

2005-08-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

P Diddy has announced that he is changing his name to the simpler, more august Diddy, and to those who would make light of this change with such snideries as "Oh yeah, that dignifies it right up" and "What was the problem before, too Jewish?" just remember how O Henry's book sales skyrocketed when he dropped the O. Actually, the Didster was almost certainly moved to finally act out of impatience and disgust at being the set-up to the classic Rowan and Martin exchange:

"P Diddy?"
"I think he did; I heard him flush."

INTELLIGENT DUHSIGN

2005-08-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush has now weighed in with his unsurprising opinion that American school science courses should include theories of Intelligent Design, which hold that the universe and everything in it came about not through the workings of natural physical processes, but were assembled by some superior being. Before this holy rolling bandwagon gets up too much momentum, let’s take a good hard look at I.D.

Most arguments in favor of Intelligent Design rest on two concepts. The first, which dates back to around 1800, is known as the argument from design, and is illustrated by what its originator, theologian William Paley, offered as the “watchmaker” analogy: If you found a watch lying in a field, you would logically infer that it was created by a conscious designer, not just the result of random natural events and processes. The idea of such a mechanism somehow evolving simply defies all logic and reason.

The second concept, more recent, is that of irreducible complexity, which maintains that the world is full of biological forms and organisms that only work as complete systems and therefore could not have evolved, bit by bit, as incomplete and nonfunctional works in progress. Just the pupil of the eye alone, or the retina, or iris, or rods and cones, would not produce vision; you need the entire eyeball. How could natural selection have produced all those individual elements piecemeal? they ask.

Basically, intelligent design assaults the premise of evolution by (1) appealing to simple logic and common sense, and (2) demanding that evolutionary science provide reasonable explanations for seemingly inexplicable phenomena.

There are numerous convincing refutations of all of these lines of I.D. attack, but I am no scientist and am unqualified to articulate them. What I can do is take a leaf from the I.D. crowd and require that they explain what seem to me to be serious flaws in their theory, things that defy logic and common sense.
Therefore, I put the following questions to proponents of Intelligent Design.

1) What exactly is so intelligent about it? Not to be glib or snide, but it clearly wasn’t sufficiently intelligent to avoid an almost endless array of design flaws, ranging from lymphoma to migraine and from envy to savagery. And that’s just with regard to humans and other living creatures. What about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves and hurricanes? These are not the characteristics of a truly well blueprinted planet. This is more like poorly fired pottery.

I am hardly the first person to question the wisdom of “our creator” based on empirical evidence--it’s been done with keen wit and insight by writers from Mark Twain to Joseph Heller--but it’s still a valid point. If the human eyeball must, of necessity, be the handiwork of some gigantic intelligence, why wasn’t that intelligence sizable enough to factor out glaucoma, or at least color blindness?

Indeed, what kind of designer builds into his/her supposed supreme creation--i.e. us--things like Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, PMS, wisdom teeth, epilepsy, addiction, impotence, peanut allergy and AIDS? Where the hell did this designer train at, General Motors? Indeed:

2) Where did our Grand Designer learn to do this? The very notion of “intelligent design” implies a scientific approach, which in turn implies some technical or educational background. Did s/he go to designer school, some kind of trade school for universe designers, like, say, Basic Universe Building University (BUBU)? Or some professional postgraduate institution, such as Physical Law school? And what kind of grades did s/he get? Home schooling seems fairly unlikely. That s/he could be self-taught seems a considerable long shot, but it might help explain such lapses as diabetes, termites, and Pat Robertson.

3) What kind of intelligent designer goes to the trouble of creating a magnificently well balanced biosystem that includes thousands of remarkable and ingenious forms of life and then adds a final species whose purpose and intent seems to be to gradually eliminate most of them? This may seem to merely be a corollary to question number one, but if we were in fact designed, it’s reasonable to ask why were we given the ability and the will to do so much damage to almost everything other than ourselves. Even a ten-year-old knows that you don’t top off that aquarium full of precious tropical fish by tossing in a pirhana.

4) Where did our Intelligent Designer go, and why? If you’re going to create an entire universe, from galaxy superclusters right down to the last charmed quark, shouldn’t you at least come around now and then to perform periodic maintenance? Why has there been no helpful tweaking or refinement of the Grand Schematic: the addition of male multiple orgasms, for example, or the elimination of mosquitoes, arthritis, and telemarketers?

5) What happened to God? Its proponents insist that “intelligent design” is not, swear to God, just code for “God.” Fine, well and good. But what does that leave us with? Instead of a fabulous creator endowed with supernaturally limitless powers whose “mysterious ways” were forever beyond our comprehension, we are now stuck with a kind of infinitely brilliant, inventive and proficient technical geek. Instead of being made in the very image of the Almighty, humans may be little more than minuscule elements of a lab experiment on an enormous scale, part of a term project required to complete Advanced Unified Field Formation 16A. Thanks for eradicating the magical and the sacred elements of our existence.

6) A fundamental premise of I.D. is that merely the human eye, let alone a whole human being, is so unimaginably complex and sophisticated a creation that it, and we, couldn’t possibly have simply evolved, but surely had to be designed by some vastly intelligent entity. But if so, then just think of how ineffably complex and sophisticated that entity must be. Indeed, if our complexity can only be the work of some supreme designer, then that designer’s far greater complexity logically could not have simply evolved either, but must have been designed by some really really REALLY super complex and sophisticated designer, who, in turn, must have...well, you can see where this leads us. Totally off the charts and reeling with conceptual vertigo. So: how do Intell Designists resolve the sheer endlessness of the “complexity necessitates design” hypothesis?
(This is an old philosophical/theological conundrum--where did God come from?--but deists could always fall back on the incomprehensibility of the supernatural, the ETERNAL I AM mysticism. The I.D. crowd, alas, have no such recourse, and are instead hoist on their own “reasoned objectivity.”)

Anyway, those are my questions. I just think that before we start radically restructuring our class curriculums, someone should be asking them. It may or may not be you. It certainly won’t be the president.

THE ROAR OF THE ENGINES, THE SMELL OF THE EXHAUST, THE COLORFUL EX-LAX LOGO

2005-07-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about NASCAR ever since I read that their board of governors, or shop stewards, or whatever group makes NASCAR's policy decisions, had given their okay to a new car sponsor: Butt Paste. It turns out that Butt Paste is a perfectly respectable and well-established brand of skin cream, although I expect the phrase has a rather different meaning in prison.

Sponsorship is to NASCAR, of course, pretty much what it is to NBC or the Beverly Hills Country Club: absolutely indispensable. The idea, obviously, is to cover as much of the race car's painted surface with sponsors' logos as is physically possible, until these vehicles have become, at least visually, little more than high-speed billboards with fire suppression systems.

I recall reading an article last year about the economics of NASCAR sponsor logos, especially the amounts paid according to the size and placement thereof on the car, and the numbers would knock you off your stool. Not just how huge they are, but how...detailed and specific. This is not just rolling metallic real estate, but rolling metallic real estate on the Malibu level, and they break things down in a most meticulous manner--this added value for a redwood deck, and that for an atrium--as happens when the money is several stories high.

Thus there is one placement fee rate per square inch for your front bumper, top, and another for your front bumper, side, and an altogether different set of numbers for the rear bumper, and as for the hood, well, if you have to ask, you might as well just lay down in front of the car because you don't belong here. Who does belong here? Hmm, let's see: current NASCAR sponsors include Ford, Daimler Chrysler, General Mills, Coke, DuPont, Nextel, Georgia-Pacific, Allstate, Duracell, Gillette, Kodak, Jack Link’s, Ice Breakers, Wal-Mart, M&M, Kingsford, Pedigree, Kellogg, Smirnoff, UPS, Mobil, 3M, Pfizer, Amazon, Office Depot, and Budweiser among others. And now, of course, Butt Paste.

Which raised, for me at least, the question of whether or not just any product with sufficient long green can plaster its name on a NASCAR racer. NASCAR events have a demographic that becomes more widespread and inclusive every day, but at its heart, which is located right next to its pocketbook, it is a Red State invention, phenomenon, and cultural possession. Those in the corner offices at NASCAR would no more readily offend or alienate their base than would those in the policy wing at 1600 Pennsylvania, and they are dealing with essentially the same base. Wholesome, patriotic, conservative, Christian, family-values folk. There are certain logos, certain products, certain organizations, certain...just...things..that would simply not be acceptable on their closed-track cultural icons.

In fact, a few years ago a marketing studies outfit called Performance Research of Newport, R.I. conducted a nationwide survey of NASCAR fans asking which sponsors they would consider most inappropriate for a Winston Cup car. As it turned out, the least acceptable, in descending order of tolerance, were: condoms, Penthouse magazine, Absolut Vodka, Mitsubishi televisions and, dead last, politicians. Except for the politicians, I couldn't begin to make sense out of these priorities. Then again, I can't particularly argue with them except on libertarian grounds.

In any case, I mentioned this recently to someone at Playboy, and he asked me to contact someone in authority at NASCAR and ask that person if there were any sponsorships that the NASCAR brass wouldn’t permit. The answer, unsurprisingly, was Yes. Beyond that, however, the functionary I spoke with insisted on bobbing and weaving, and whichever potential sponsor I specified--a Vegas casino, Michael Jackson, Colt Firearms, the Church of Scientology, political candidates in general--the answer was, with little variation: "We would have to consider that on a case-by-case basis." There was only one suggested sponsor that he frankly admitted NASCAR would, in fact, not accept. Playboy.

So NASCAR's official position in regard to many specific sponsor applicants remains as murky as the soul of Karl Rove. But based on the typical NASCAR family, the bedrock of the sport, and what that family approves of and does not, and would have in its home or family and would not, I think the following very partial list is fairly reliable.

OK.................................NOT OK

Butt Paste.........................Butt Plugs
Viagra.............................RU-284
Hardee’s...........................Antoine’s Quiche Nook
Dolly Parton.......................Rosie O'Donnell
Guns & Ammo / Motor Trend........Glamour / Bon Appetit
Delta Airlines.....................Air France
Fed Ex.............................FourEx
Excedrin...........................Oxycontin
NRA................................ACLU
Castrol GTX........................Oil of O Lay Personal Lubricant
Paul Newman........................RuPaul / Paul Reubens
ESPN / Fox.....................BET / Oxygen
Grecian Formula....................Massengale Douche
Boy Scouts of America..............NAMBLA
M&Ms...............................Eminem
Good Guys..........................Good Vibrations

Feel free to jump on in here with further entries, if you have nothing better to do.

TODAY'S LIFE QUIZ QUESTION

2005-07-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

Flex Plexico is:

A) The clinical term for premature and advanced deterioration and stiffening of the ligaments;

B) The name of a kids' TV cartoon android superhero;

C) A manufacturer of high-end deep sea fishing rods;

D) The name of a Defense Department spokesman.

Answer: D. (Source: Newsweek, 7/25/05, p. 9.)

SUGGESTED TOM DELAY RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN SLOGANS

2005-07-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

2006 may seem to be a way off, but when you’re up to your neck in scandals, it’s never too soon to start campaigning. I would merely like to suggest that The Hammer consider the following slogan suggestions based on what could be some of the salient, and in some cases downright nagging, issues when the campaign heats up next year. I realize that some of these might prove to be somewhat counter-productive, but then, that’s exactly why I’m urging him to give them a try.

Unindicted For [__] Days
Ethics, Shmethics
Judges? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Judges!
The Candidate Of The Brain Dead
Oh Yeah, Like You'd Turn Down All-Expenses-Paid Luxury "Junkets"
HE STANDS FOR THE RIGHT TO run everybody’s LIFE
Having Family On The Payroll IS a "Family Value”
Integrity You Can Take To The Bank. He Did.
He'll Tell You When You Can Die
If He Goes Down, He's Taking This District With Him
Thou Shalt Not Dump God's Congressman
Better a Crook Than a Democrat
Just A Reminder: He Knows Where You Live

ONE, TWO, MANY TRUE CHURCHES

2005-07-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just read a lovely news item in the Florida Sun-Sentinal today (7/17) about how a Christian adoption agency in Mississippi will not accept adoption applications from Catholic families because the Catholic church does not square with the agency's particular Christian mission statement or parochial interpretations or, I don't know, choice of priestly garb, perhaps. The point is, the Church of Rome is not sufficiently Christian for the Christian adoption agency.

To my way of thinking, there should be a very important message in this for all those people who would love to make this "a more Christian nation," especially among the GOP's hard right theological base. The message: There's always going to be someone "more Christian" than you. Someone whose definition of "true Christian" excludes you. Someone whose Christianity is purer or more literal or more doctrinaire or excessive than yours is. And--here's the point--they will never be satisfied with half measures. Those at the far extremes never are.

Hamas may be ready to sit at the table with Israel, but that just marks them as apostates and weaklings in the eyes of Islamic Jihad, who simply will not settle for anything less than every Jew, Christian and Hindu dead as a carp. The Utah desert is alive with wild-eyed ravers who will never forgive the Latter Day Saints for their satanic abandonment of polygamy. Leninism always degrades into Stalinism.
Whoever you are, in a contest of ideological/canonical purity, there will always be someone for whom you are a perfect candidate for the fires of hell. Especially because you are the serpent inside the tent.

The Catholics seem particularly steamed that the Christian adoption agency is funded in part by proceeds from the state's Choose Life license plates, many of which are purchased by anti-abortion Catholics. I would suggest they be far more concerned that some of their protestant allies in the crusade toward an America run by, of, and for Christians do not in fact consider them legitimately as such.
Personally, nothing would make me happier than to see a nice internecine theological and ideological turf war rending the Christian right. It's time we were handed a few red-meat wedge issues for a change.

UNTHINKING OUT LOUD

2005-07-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

Sending...sending...sending...if there's anyone out there, I'm QXL145 here in Queensland, Australia. We've not heard a word from the northern hemisphere since...

Whoops, just channeling chapter 16 of "On The Beach."

As a great sense of detachment, much like that which Tom DeLay feels for the truth, begins to lift like a haze from my little moonlet in the vast blogiverse, two brief items.

1) There was a report in the news last week that scientists now believe they have the means to artificially "grow" meat--beef, chicken, pork, the usual suspects--through a kind of culturing process, in the laboratory. There would be all manner of benefits to this--no pharmaceutical adulteration, no PETA bombers, etc.--but I couldn't get past the quaint fact that there was a news story headlined "Lab Grown Meat" that wasn't about steroids.

2) It wasn't until I saw that "we're still pals" commitment photo of Bush and Rove walking so chummily across the White House lawn yesterday that I was struck by the revelation, looking at the two of them, of just exactly who and what they are: It's Spanky and Alfalfa, folks, all grown up and running the country.

STATES OF GRACE

2005-06-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

I saw a TV commercial last night for one of those Country & Western Greatest Hits CD collections, and one of the brief musical excerpts was of a song by David Frizzell and Shelly West titled "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma." The "You" in question is, of course, a woman, in this case one that a cowboy trapped in L.A. misses so much that he is moved to the extreme of lyricizing. The premise is that God made Oklahoma expressly to house this female.

My first reaction, naturally, was one of relief and gratitude. "Glad someone finally cleared that up," I thought. Because I once drove through Oklahoma, and although that was years ago, I've always wondered why in God's name God ever had made Oklahoma. I always more or less assumed that it had something to do with God's fondness for epic land rushes, or dust bowls, or college football.

But this enlightening musical experience moved me to undertake further research into the little-understood science of theogeogenesis, or the study of why God makes places, with the result that I have discovered a number of the Almighty's motivations, justifications, and rationales for making various of our other states. A lamentably incomplete list...

The Reason God Made:

New York -- Needed a place to put his Long Island estate.
North Dakota -- To keep South Dakota from getting too cozy with Canada.
Nevada -- Owed a favor to the Gambini family.
Florida -- Wanted a place where he'd fit right in when it came time to retire.
Minnesota -- As a game preserve for Lutherans.
Kansas -- Sheer boredom.
Massachusetts -- Needed someplace to put the Irish.
West Virginia -- After making Virginia, had spare parts left over.
New Jersey -- Needed someplace to put the Italians.
Mississippi -- God only knows.
Idaho -- Needed someplace to put the rightwing loonies.
Louisiana -- Wanted to help Arkansas feel better about itself.
California -- Lost a bar bet with Satan.
Utah -- Curious to see if anyone would be desperate enough to live there.
Texas -- The result of a monumental, crippling hangover.
Delaware -- Just for the hell of it.
Alabama -- Crude, early, clumsy attempt at South Carolina.
Indiana -- Thought it only wise to keep Illinois and Ohio separated.
New Mexico -- Had never really been satisfied with how the original Mexico worked out.

More to come, if my grant is renewed.

IF ANY OF YOUR "SURVIVOR" TRIBE MEMBERS HAVE BROUGHT A DECK OF CARDS, JUST KILL THEM NOW

2005-06-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

The American Contract Bridge League, having some time to kill between hands, conducted a worldwide survey which asked bridge players who they would choose as companions if stranded on a desert island. Fifteen percent said Jacques Cousteau, despite the fact that he's been dead longer than irony. Nineteen percent said Tom Hanks, evidently in the belief that "Castaway" was a documentary. And forty-two percent (my favorite group, just because of the Darwinian implications) said they'd rather be stranded with three other bridge players than with anyone who merely came equipped with survival skills.

THE TEMPINATOR

2005-06-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

If you look at Governor Schwarzenegger's recent polling charts, you see an Approval line that has, in less time than it takes to qualify a ballot initiative, simply gone off a cliff. After coasting along on the tailwind of a voter approval rating that arced as high as the 70s, he hit a downdraft of epic proportions, from a robust 60 percent approval among all adults in January to a one-term-indicator 40 percent in April. On the political landscape, those numbers constitute a nine-point quake, representing the loss of fully one-third of the governor's popular support in the space of four months. In a world where it has taken over two years of rising body counts in a false-auspices war to let the air out of George Bush's numbers, and where White House infidelity and impeachment actually boosted Clinton's, how does this happen?

We Americans are stubbornly defensive of the choices we have made as voters, because to revise downward our opinion of those we cast ballots for is to raise the possibility that we were saps and suckers who were taken in by campaign slickery and misrepresentation. It takes a lot to drag us to that point of painful acknowledgment. Usually a grand jury indictment at the very least, or a Paris Hiltonesque video playing on the Internet, or a drunken shooting spree. Short of that, we are remarkably loath to give up on our elected officials. There are instances of our having re-elected officeholders who were, in point of fact, no longer alive. What could our governor have done that shrinks a politician's poll numbers worse than death?

The state has suffered no massive job losses, financial scandals, energy crises, or even natural disasters during his tenure. He has turned out to be not quite what most of us thought he was, and not nearly what many of us hoped he was, but that description applies to so many of our elected officials that it's a wonder more of us don't move to New Zealand. True, he's been taking money from vested interests and influence brokers in amounts and at a pace that would burn out a hand calculator, but after all, we tolerated over five years of that in Grey Davis before turning on him. A lot of us are apparently disenchanted with the way he is addressing such issues as the budget deficit, our school system, and state employee pension funds, but we've rarely been enchanted by any politician on those issues. He has tended to be a blowhard, racially abrasive, simplistic, and adversarial, but those characteristics have kept plenty of people in elected office in California, especially in the red sections of Big Blue.

The explanation for the Governor’s popularity freefall, I believe, lies with a quality he shares with Michael Jackson. It’s not that each has been accused of sexual improprieties with persons in no position to resist or protest, or even that what Michael is accused of doing to young males is, in a manner of speaking, what a growing number of voters apparently feel that Schwarzenegger is trying to do to the state's nurses, firefighters and teachers. The fatal quality they both share is that of celebrity. Schwarzenegger was not elected on the basis of experience, intellect, or political agenda. He was elected because he was Arnold Schwarzenegger. His print media base was People, not Newsweek or National Review, and his bully TV pulpit wasn’t Nightline or even Fox News, but The Tonight Show.

He ran not as a politician but as a celebrity, and was elected on that basis. Now he is being judged on that basis. His problem is that, as reluctant as we are to abandon those we’ve elected to office, we are enthusiastically ready to reject and repudiate those whom we’ve elevated to celebrity status. We are notorious for routinely conferring hot phenomenon status on some human curio such as Ben Affleck, Richard Simmons or Britney Spears, only to abruptly turn against them, sometimes for discernible reasons, sometimes just because. Almost overnight, names that just last year shipped platinum or were displayed above the film’s title have become fodder for Dennis Miller, slang for “embarrassingly over.”

We’ve seen plenty of popularity cave-ins like Schwarzenegger’s before, but those buried in the rubble weren’t politicians, they were the BeeGees and Roseanne and Sly Stallone and Vanna White and the King of Unpop, Michael. Judging by his numbers, we evidently regard Arnold as one of their tribe, and not a member of the clan of the elected. In short, the Governor’s breathtaking favorability reversal doesn’t echo the experience of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter. It just echoes that of Burt Reynolds.

HE DRAWS HIS WEAPON, HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES

2005-05-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is unquestionably my favorite sports story of the week...

AP --MIAMI -- 5/26/05 -- He's Shaquille O'Neal, basketball star and undercover officer. The 7-foot-1, 325-pound Miami Heat center, who has a fascination with law enforcement, was recently sworn in as a U.S. deputy marshal. He spent six hours on a Saturday afternoon with Miami Beach police investigators helping with cases.
O'Neal has joined a Department of Justice task force that tracks down sexual predators who target children on the Internet. He is becoming familiar with the techniques and software that officers use to track down the predators, said Miami Beach Police Chief Don De Lucca. And he spends countless hours on his home computer, logging into the police network and learning the ropes.
"I put a lot into it, and when I am done playing, I plan on going undercover and then being the sheriff or chief of police somewhere, either Miami or Orlando, I don't know yet," O'Neal said recently.

Shaquille O'Neal, undercover cop. I can't wait. Secret Agent XXXXL. What exactly is he going to do, dress as a house? Is inconspicuousness no longer considered an aid in surveillance? Was Alice Cooper unavailable for the job? "The street gangs, assuming that I was merely a statue that the NBA had erected on the sidewalk, never knew what hit them when the raid came down at the conclusion of my six-week assignment." We could team him with Richard Simmons, or Carrot Top. I know, I'd better just shut up now. You never know when he might be listening.

WIEDER’S EXTRA BAGGAGE #3

2005-05-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

I routinely come across a variety of reality quirks in my Internet wanderings and don’t have any other use for them. Here are a handful of them. They come from sources about as reputable as any these days, and to the best of my knowledge are factually true.

FLIN FLAN FLIM FLAM
Medicinal marijuana is legal in Canada, which seems somehow appropriate for a country whose flag is a leaf. In fact, weed is supplied to certified users at $150 for 30 grams by Health Canada, the country’s national health agency, which gets it from a growing outfit called Prairie Plant Systems. As you might expect given a pot farm with “Systems” in its name--or for that matter, with a name, period--almost none of the 600-odd Canadian citizens who are licensed to get legally loaded will touch the stuff. They eschew and revile it as being weak, ineffective, and tasting of chemicals. Perhaps these characteristics have to do with the fact that Prairie Plant Systems grows its pot in Flin Flan, Manitoba...IN AN ABANDONED MINE SHAFT. Honest! This is what happens when government goes into the illicit drug business. Give that some thought before you buy into the “Let’s decriminalize, control and oversee it” line.

CELLOPAIN
“Cell chords” are a clinician’s term for raw, sore and blistered vocal chords, sometimes with nodules that require surgery, which afflict persons who chronically and prolongedly talk too loudly into their cell phones. I only mention this painful malady because it suggests that there might actually be a God.

TAKE UP THY ROD AND THY STAFF
The Jesus Christians is the catchy but unoriginal name of a religious cult which originated in Australia and is now spreading into the U.S. Among its other compelling spiritual qualities is its fundamental tenet that its followers should masturbate as a substitute for and preventive against marriage. The rim shot: “It’s the only church where the prayer books have a centerfold.” And the pages commonly get stuck together. And instead of crossing themselves, members of the flock kind of make a fist and...well, you get the picture.